Västerlånggatan

Västerlånggatan ( _sv. The Western Long Street) is a street in Gamla stan, the old town of Stockholm, Sweden. Stretching southward between the squares Mynttorget and Järntorget, it follows the course of the city's now demolished 13th century defensive wall.

The blocks along the street are elongated but only a few metres in width; those on the eastern side oriented lengthwise, and those on the western crosswise. Only four blocks thus forms the eastern side of the street while some 20 are lined-up along the western side. Most of the front doors of the buildings are located either on the quite Prästgatan, the parallel street passing along the eastern side, or in one of the numerous alleys on the street's western side. The intact façades of the northernmost blocks are hiding the semi-detached offices of the Parliament. To the south of those are the remaining numerous and very narrow blocks and alleys which before the great fire of 1625 occupied the entire western side of the street.

Origin of the name

Today renown as one of Gamla stan's most picturesque and busy tourist magnets, Västerlånggatan was for many centuries one of the major streets of Stockholm together with Österlånggatan, both of which were running outside of the city walls. During the 15th century, they were both called "Allmänningsgatan" ("The Common Street") or "Långa gatan" ("The long street"), occasionally in combination, like "Allmenninx longe gathen" or "longe Almenninx gathen" in 1514, and/or with a suffix such as "västan till" ("to the west") appended. The current name was officially established in 1885.ref Stockholm|Gatunamn|pages = 39-70 | chapter = Innerstaden: Gamla stan]

History

Originally the street was little more than a pathway passing just outside the city's western wall and following the shoreline, as the gently meandering street still reminds us. It was however connecting the northern city gate, "Norrbro", with the southern, "Söderbro", and it was thus the main route between Uppland, the province north of the city, and Södermanland, south of the city.ref Stockholm|Glase|pages = 69-70| chapter = Västra Stadsholmen]

During the 15th century, the street became the paved artery road it still is today, line-up with dwellings and shops on either side. During the Middle Ages and Vasa era, the southern part of the street formed part of the district centred on Järntorget, at the time the most prominent quarters in the city inhabited by influential merchants such as Mårten Trotzig, Mårten Leuhusen and Erik Larsson von der Linde. Along the rest of the street craftsmen had their small workshops, and the northernmost section, stretching between Mynttorget and Storkyrkobrinken, was called "Stadssmedjegatan" ("City's Smith's Street"), because the blacksmiths who were confined outside the city because of the danger of fire had their headquarters there. During the 17h century this section was instead inhabited by goldsmiths and accordingly climbed the ranks.cite web
url = http://www.olahammarlund.se/essaer/vlangg.htm
title = Västerlånggatan | language = Swedish
year = 2002 | accessdate = 2007-03-04
publisher = Ola Hammarlund]

From the middle of the 19th century, the commercial centre of Stockholm was transplanted north of the old town that gradually started to transform into a slum district. Västerlånggatan however escaped this faith, as it was connected to Drottninggatan by the bridge Riksbron in 1907, and the shops along the street were updated. The medieval street façades were transformed in accordance to the taste of the day; plaster ornaments and cast iron colonettes mail-ordered from Germany replaced the medieval fronts, resulting in the present large shop windows usually displaying the well-preserved interiors from the later part of that century while concealing the often still intact medieval cores of the buildings.

Many of the boutiques founded during the 19th and early 20th century, were still around until the late 1970s; the northern section packed with hotels, while the remaining street was renown for its milliner's shops including up to 30 coat shops. During the later half of the 20th century however, the scene started to change, increasing rents forcing many old shops to shut down or relocate, the oldest after more than 250 years in business, subsequently replaced by more or less fitting successors marketing tourist-oriented gewgaws.

Notwithstanding, Swedes and tourists alike still love to mingle among the boutiques, the medieval gables and the later additions, the street thus preserving its old ways — still offering its musicians to Stockholmers hurrying to work in the morning; blustering pub-crawlers still vexing stoic dwellers, and the old forged iron signs continuing to ignore the neon signs still tempting passers-by with all sorts of gadgets. Gone are, however, the filth, funeral processions, and prostitution in the area brilliantly described by the troubadour Carl Michael Bellman.

A walk north to south

Mynttorget-Storkyrkobrinken

On Number 1-5 is "Demokrativerkstaden" ("Democracy Workshop"), a pedagogical roll-playing environment operated by the Parliament offering young school children the chance to act as MPs for a few hours.cite web
url = http://www.riksdagen.se/templates/R_Page____288.aspx
title = Demokrativerkstaden (Skolår 7-9) | language = Swedish
date = 2006-10-27 | accessdate = 2007-03-02
publisher = Swedish Parliament]

Salviigränd, named after Johan Adler Salvius (1590-1652), the Swedish main negotiator during the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, used to stretch down to the water. On the left corner (Number 1) is a suite of rooms featuring a neoclassical interior from 1795 restored to its original state, sumptuously furnished and richly decorated with friezes and medallions.ref Stockholm|Glase|pages = 78-79| chapter = Västra Stadsholmen]

On Number 6 was until recently the bookstore "Hemlins bokhandel". It was founded in 1864 and taken over by Emil Hemlin in the 1880s. From the late 18th century and well into modern times, the neighbourhood used to be the quarters of the 'printed word', the part of the city where both the books and their consumers were located, and were people from other parts of the country would come to find and talk about the latest novels.ref Stockholm|Glase|pages = 70-71| chapter = Västra Stadsholmen]

Above street level and behind the intact front, Number 7-17 are the semi-detached offices of the Parliament. On number 7 are Roman letters displaying the year 1888 when the Neorenaissance sgrafitto façade was created. On number 13 above the windows on the first floor, are the heads of Victor Emanuel II, Garibaldi and Cavour, obviously added by someone favourably disposed towards the Italian unification. The entire block is hiding the northern end of Prästgatan, one of the few blind ends of the old town, which was historically known as "Helvetesgränd" ("Alley of Hell"), either because the city executioner resided in the area or because the entire neighbourhood is located north of the cathedral (e.g. in Norse folklore associated with the "Kingdom of the Dead").ref Stockholm|Gatunamn|pages = 64-65 | chapter = Innerstaden: Gamla stan]

Number 63, including its Neo-Rococo ornaments and green shutters, is the family heirloom of the Torndahls. The building was bought by the goldsmith Per Gustaf Torndahl in the mid 19th century and his shop was continued by his widow, Ida Tekla Sabina Cunigunda who also added the ornaments. The grandchildren of Gustaf and Ida are still carefully minding the building and operating the handicraft shop still present on the address.cite web
author = Johan Anell | title = Släkten Torndahl
year = 2004 | publisher =
url = http://www.biebadbolag.se/newpage11.html
accessdate = 2007-03-05 | language = Swedish]

Barely visible in the red sandstone cartouche of the portal of Number 65 is a Christogram, IHS, the maxim SOLI DEI GLORIA ("To God alone the glory"), and the initials of the Holstein cloth trader Peter Hanssen and his wife Anna Steker:The couple, which restored the building during the 1660s, were very rich and, among other things, donated the pulpit still found in the German Church.

Number 68, the so called "von der Linde House" was built by Erik Larsson in 1633. He had made a fortune exporting Swedish iron and importing wine and, serving as an economical advisor to King Gustavus II Adolphus, was eventually raised to peerage under the name "von der Linde". The bared brick wall of the Dutch Renaissance façade is richly decorated with sandstone ornaments cut by Aris Claeszon from Haarlem, including the sumptuous portal. The two heads in the portico symbolizes Mercury and Neptune and in the arms of Erik Larsson are two linden which he planted on his homestead at Lovön. Flanking the portal are two cartouches displaying inscriptions in German:

The property was later bought by Queen Christina to her half-brother, Gustav, Count of Vasaborg, the illegitimate child of Gustavus Adolphus, who had a wing added facing the square on opposite side of block. The names of all proprietors, historical and present, are engraved on a slate behind the front door, a list ending with the Masonry Master's Guild ("Murmestare Embetet i Stockholm"), founded in the old town in 1487, and today using the building for their extensive archive. Two of the old proprietors have given their names to establishment residing in the building; the former confectioner "Drottning Kristina" facing the street and the banqueting rooms "von der Lindeska valven" in the basementcite web
author = | title = Murmestare Embetets historik
date = | publisher = Murmestare Embetet i Stockholm
url = http://www.murmestare.se/pls/nvp/Document.Show?CID=4082&MID=106
accessdate = 2007-03-05 | language = Swedish] [ [http://lindeskavalvet.gastrogate.com/ von der Lindeska Valvet] ]

On Number 79 is the restaurant Mårten Trotzig, named after Mårten Trotzigs Gränd, the narrowest alley in the old town passing next to it, in its turn named after the merchant Mårten Trotzig (1559-1617) who owned a building in the alley. In the restaurant is an excavated medieval refuse chute once accessed through an exterior door.ref Stockholm|Glase|pages = 58, 76| chapter = Västra Stadsholmen]

The Danish King Christian II entered Stockholm on September 7, 1520, following the surrender of Christina Gyllenstierna, the widow queen of Sten Sture the Younger, and became king of Sweden on November 1, as such he choose not to occupy the Royal Palace, but to stay with the German merchant Gorius Holst who lived in this building during the week preceding the Stockholm Bloodbath.

Much of the present block was created by the secretary of King Eric XIV, Erik Göransson Tegel, who married Margareta Dantzeville, the widow of Reinhold Leuhusen who owned a building here. Tegel, mostly remembered for having written history books but who had more than one string to his bow and also worked as a spy in Denmark and Poland, started to buy neighbouring properties in order to enlarge his home, which gave the entire block a common history. An archaeological excavation in 1992 unveiled a wall and a vault in the backyard of the block.cite web
author = John Hedlund | title = Latona 11
year = 1992 | publisher = Stockholm City Museum
url = http://www.stadsmuseum.stockholm.se/media/pdf/Latona11.pdf
accessdate = 2007-03-05 | language = Swedish
format=PDF] The painter Carl Larsson was born here in 1853. While he today cherished for his watercolours of bright and colourful idyllic family sceneries, his gloomy childhood in the old town, caused him to live his life with melancholy constantly at hand.

Number 70 is a medieval building but the exterior was created in the early 17th century. On the front facing Funckens Gränd are the initials of former owners: L L D L 1627, Lydert Lang and Dorotea Lang. The present building on Number 72-74 is a product of the merging of two older buildings during the 20th century. In medieval times, these two buildings were separated by an alley of which remains a narrow and elongated backyard passing through the block. Various properties in the block have been merged and partitioned repeatedly over several centuries, and though virtually all traces of the medieval neighbourhood are gone, the present façade is decorated with bits and pieces of older buildings; placed in niches in the 1930s when the present shop front was built. The trader Thomas Funck owned most of the buildings in the neighbourhood in the 17th century, why he gave the alley its name. Number 76, mentioned together with the property on the opposite side of the block as "both buildings of late Funck", probably referring to one of the sons of the former. A medieval alley once passed through the building on Number 78, and the present building is partly from the early 17th century, while the shop windows and the attic were rebuilt in the 20th century.ref Stockholm|Nordberg|pages = 237, 238, 241-242|chapter = Deucalion]

The numbers of Västerlånggatan are continuous with those of Järntorget, so the addresses on the square are numbered 81-85 on the north side, and 78-84 on the southern.

See also

*Österlånggatan
*List of streets and squares in Gamla stan

References

External links

* [http://www.hitta.se/SearchCombi.aspx?__VIEWSTATE=%2FwEPDwUKMTg4NDI3NTMzNWRk&UCSB%3AWflWhite=1a1b&UCSB%3AWflPink=4a&SearchType=4&UCSB%3ABBX1=&UCSB%3ABBY1=&UCSB%3ABBX2=&UCSB%3ABBY2=&UCSB%3ATextBoxWho=&UCSB%3ATextBoxWhere=V%E4sterl%E5nggatan+Stockholm&UCSB%3AButtonSearch=%A0%A0hitta%21%A0%A0&CombiDetails%3AMapControl%3Acx=1424503&CombiDetails%3AMapControl%3Acy=6431989&CombiDetails%3AMapControl%3ApointsHidden=&CombiDetails%3AMapControl%3Az=4 hitta.se - Location map and virtual walk]