Property

Another weird wonder we found just around the corner from our house, this gutted building at Frakkastígur 16, just below Kaffismiðja Íslands and the corner shop Drekinn and where the music and instruments store Rín* lived for forty years before moving to Brautarholt in 2004, has become a canvas for street artists while its future is being decided. You can play around with this interactive map of Reykjavik to find the streets mentioned in this post...

I found some interesting info on this location: the property just below it takes an L-shaped turn up to Njálsgata, and is where the Ölgerðin Egill Skallagrímson brewery used to be. I remember very well being able to smell the almost too-rich aroma of a new batch of Malt Extrakt being brewed there before they moved out to Grjótháls. In the corner crook created by the fairly new apartment complex built on the site of the old brewery (btw, the 1100 square meter site was bought by the City for a sweet 37 million krónur back in 2000...good god how times have changed! That amount might buy you an average three bedroom apartment a tenth that size today) sits the Drekinn house built in 1905, a blue cement building from 1943, and this now-rundown structure. It seems its owners have requested permission to tear down at least six times since 2006, though it looks like the local building preservation society has had a hand in making sure that didn't happen, and there seems to have been a co-owner of the lot that also refused to agree on demolition. Ultimately, I'm sure it was the bank crash that set any grand real estate intentions on ear, seeing as the last specific mention I could find was an August 2008 photo report of abandoned houses in the midtown area by the Prevention Department of the Capital District Fire and Rescue Service, when there was still enough money floating around to bitch and squabble over who would get what share of the prosperity pie. Sigh.

The picture below is one I took last fall of some nice visitors who stopped to snap a classic shot of the Drekinn shop.

And here below? Just some nuns, and just for fun : )

*Some of the links in this post are in Icelandic...sorry I wasn't able to find anything in English with the same info, but now you've got more material to practice your language learning with! 

Memory

Thank you to those of you who commented on the previous post. I've fully absorbed the overall message that more photos is a good thing, and I'll try to do my best to satisfy your image cravings. I'm keeping this post short, though, and presenting a dramatic color juxtaposition I encountered last Friday night, which turned out to be one of those most enjoyable long, long evenings that make you very glad to live in such an alive and bursting little city.

I'm sharing this ubiquitous image of our famous Hallgrímskirkja (which I've decided is our own personal sacred pyramid) because it is so very blue, and because soon enough we won't even have this azure twilight to swim in; as the sun rises and rises in the sky and the leaves fill out on the trees, the street lamps will stay unlit and we'll, for a few summer months, forget what evening, and especially night, look like. And after the long slow, cold winter we've had, that will be very welcomed for sure.

The photo below was chosen for, of course, its absolute rouge and also as a permanent reminder of this night in particular, partially soundtracked by our own neo-psychedelic indie wonder, Singapore Sling. It was, just honestly, a Friday the 13th to remember forever. If you were there, you'll know what I mean ~°~

Stroll

Some shots from a recent Saturday walk around the neighborhood...

I don't usually share more than one or two, maybe three, pictures per post, which has helped me to really have to choose images that resonate with me, or that prompt some writing. So this post is out of character. I'm actually working on creating ebooks for download with walking tours of our world here, with short descriptions of the scenes I run across. This is a very basic sampling of that concept:

This charming girl was sitting on Klapparstígur with a sign that reads, "I am a French woman," in not-so-grammatically-correct Icelandic. The two men are local down-and-outers. I have no idea what her purpose was, but she was having fun.

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I'd seen this tourist down on Austurstræti with her friend/companion. Here she's taking a rest on the way up Bankastræti, with the Government House in the background.

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Up the hill, at the intersection of Skólavörðurstígur and Laugavegur, a wacky girl band was collecting money for the Red Cross, which made everyone smile.

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Even though I love getting shots of color and life here in the city, I'm also fascinated by dereliction and decay, especially when examples can be found right close classic tourism areas. I knew the family that lived in this house on Baldursgata, just off Skólavörðurstígur, in the early 90's and it's sad to see how dismal it has become. The graffiti reads, "Correct me," while the shockingly large asp that's growing from the crack between the foundation and sidewalk is both a testament to neglect and to Nature's tenacious will to thrive.

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Just a bit farther down Baldursgata is another house in a very sorry state. It burned in November, 2008, just after the bank collapse, which gave it the suspicious smack of arson, especially given its recent history. A sad sight, for sure.

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The interesting thing about this location is that it clearly shows how decay doesn't have to mean ugly. I've passed by this backyard shed on Kárastígur (where our favorite hostel, Our House, is located) a hundred times and have always loved the remote Eastern European feel of this scene.

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After all this walking I needed some nourishment, so I stopped by the Noodle Station and got to listen to the romance victories and woes of these American (Canadian?) girls at the next table. We love Noodle Station!

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After eats, I spotted an acquaintance of mine who looked so retro-metropolitan cute that I had to ask her to pose for me.

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And finally, to wrap up this post with another splash of red corrugated iron, is this shot of a classic wood-frame house peeking over the fence of a very weathered home on Frakkastígur, which I'm sure many of you have passed on your travels through town : )

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Have you tried Dynamic Viewing yet? Five new views in all. Use the blue tab at the top of the view page to check them all out : )