Stenliden No Longer

As promised a few days ago, here are a collage of photos from Stenliden. A property that was built back in the 1920ths close to the Hammar Estate in Tungelsta. Over the years it has served as a school. And as a library. And in the 1950ths, the nurse Barbro Edhem lived and worked here. I'd never been inside the building until a couple of days ago when I noticed that the demolition team was ready to tear the place down. The last people that lived here was a local historian and a young family. The photo to the left shows the stairs up to the apartment on the second floor where the nurse lived sixty years ago. Top right is an abandoned piano on the inner room at the first floor. Middle right is from the nursery room on the second floor where the young family lived up until sometime last year. Bottom right is a view from the kitchen on the first floor. Some of the cabinets had been left on the walls. There was a few more items left here and there and I have a few more photos in my Stenliden set at flickr. The reason for the demolition is a new bridge that will be constructed here as the area will undergo some serious changes in the near future. A new railway track will be built between Västerhaninge and Tungelsta which means that a few old X-ings will be moved and a couple of new road will be built.

Demolition Time at Stenliden

Talk about leaving it to the last possible moment. This is Stenliden. Perhaps not a famous building in Tungelsta, but with a lot of history. Over the years it has housed a school. It has also served as a library. And back in the 1950ths the nurse lived here and worked here. For the last few years local historian Åke Rhudin rented the house from the council, but he moved out late last year. Today as I walked by, the demolishing team had arrived. I have never been inside, so I took my chance and walked in for a photo shoot. Inside I ran into an old friend of my parents, who was there for a final look. As I walked out after my photo shoot, the demolition started, and as I'm typing this there's probably not much left of Stenliden. I will show some more photos in a day or two.


The reason for the demolition is the construction of a new bridge. In the next few years a second rail track will be built between Västerhaninge and Tungelsta (a 3,2 km stretch), and three old railroad crossings will be closed. The new bridge will span the rail tracks, and one other property ( a horse farm at Lillhammar) will also be demolished as a new road will be built.

Almost Like a Summer Day

A few days ago, on the warmest day of the year, the roads were filled with happy cyclists. I saw Marie coming towards me, waved to her and she stopped at Stenliden, or to be more precise where Stenliden used to be.Surprisingly it was Marie's first bike ride of the year (she prefers slalom skiing in the winter time). Normally she enjoys spinning, and told me about a three hour Marathon spinning exercise at a nearby gym recently. Sounds tough I said, but she explained that with a good instructor and great music it was easy. Marie lives in Västerhaninge and works at an accounting firm. She is planning to ride the 300 km Vätternrundan race in the middle of June this year, so she needs to get a few miles on the bike before then. And as the weather was summer like when we met, I'm guessing she was out for a few hours, just like me.

Half a House

This was the scene at Stenliden a couple of days ago. The demolition work continued, and I knew I had to stop and capture this shot. Not very often that you see something like this. This house was build around 1920 and has a lot of history. Read my previous posts about Stenliden here.

The Landscape Architect

This is Daniel Larsson. He is a landscape architect and works for WSP. I noticed him as he was taking some photos with his Canon EOS 50D at the commuter station in Tungelsta yesterday and walked over for a chat. I have a few photos from the recent work at the station and a few WSP photos as well. WSP is constructing a new bridge over the railway here and Daniel was shooting photos to use as he will make a 3D version of the future bridge. He works in Photoshop for the panoramic photos, shoots in RAW and will make a HDR panorama that he will then import to SketchUp for the 3D rendering. He figured this project would take around three days. To make room for the new bridge a couple of buildings, including Stenliden, has been teared down. Daniel is from Linköping, but lives in Stockholm. Before that he worked in London for a year and a half. One project he was involved with was the Brighton International Arena.

This Just In

One month ago I showed you a photo of a burning car. Since then there has been a few similar incidents. Just a couple of days after that first fire, another car was stolen, dumped and torched on the same place. That is, just outside my bedroom window (first photo). And just like the first time, the fire fighters took their time, but eventually they arrived. The burning wreck was then left outside the school gymnasium for one week! A big hit both with school kids and pre-school kids. As that car finally was towed away, I found another stolen, dumped and torched car at Stenliden (second photo). It was a new SAAB. And next to that one was a fourth car. By now I had been in contact with the police and a few other people trying to find out if this was being investigated. Then followed two incidents in Jordbro. A drug addict went berserk and vandalised some 25 cars one Saturday night. He was apprehended and claims to have no memory of that evening. Then followed a car burning frenzy. Seven cars parked at three different locations burned on the same night! And just last weekend three cars burned at Ribby in Västerhaninge (third photo). I talked to two women at the scene who speculated that this last incident could have been a personal vendetta as two of the cars had the same owner. Oh, and speaking of incidents, there was an arson attack in Jordbro last week. One of my flickr contacts got a few photos including one where the fire fighters saved the life of a cat found in the empty apartment. I wonder what will happen next?