Esplanadi Park (Swedish: Esplanadparken) is a narrow green area
in the heart of Helsinki, between the streets Etelä and
Pohjoisesplanadi. The park appears for the first time in the town
plan in 1812. The park is a popular place for walking. Often there
are also street music performances in the park.
The word
esplanade means a park street where the park is located in the
middle of the lanes. Other esplanade-type park streets in Helsinki
include e.g. Munkkiniemi puistotie, Mechelininkatu and the Hesperian
esplanade separating Etu- and Taka-Töölö.
The colloquial name
today is Espa, formerly Espis.
Moreover, there are hardly any
apartments on either the North or the South Esplanade. In a 1970
Helsingin Sanomat story, eight households were found with Esplanadi
as their address, many of them janitors. In 2015, there were only
four residents.
Esplanadi park stretches from Erottaja to the western end of
Kauppatori, but Pohjoisesplanadi street continues along the edge of
Kauppatori and past the Presidentinlinna to the Katajanokka canal.
The north-south streets divide the Esplanadi park into three parts,
which have been given their own names. The section between
Mannerheimintie and Korkeavuorenkatu is Teatterie Esplanadi, which got
its name from the Swedish Theater at the end of the park.
The
section between Korkeavuorenkatu and Fabianinkatu is the Runeberg
esplanade.
The easternmost part of the park from Fabianinkatu to
Unioninkatu is Kappeliesplanadi. It gets its name from the restaurant
Kappel, which has been located in the park since 1867. Opposite the
Kappel there is a performance stage known as Espa's stage. Free public
concerts are organized there in the summer.
Esplanadi was confirmed as the name of the park zone westward from
the present-day Kauppatori in 1820. The name was originally connected to
the Ulrikasborg fortress located on the current Tähtitorninvuori in the
early 19th century; the square and the park zone formed a kind of
fortress esplanade, i.e. a shooting zone in front of the fortress in
question. The eastern part, between Fabianin and Unioninkatu, was the
first to be renovated into a park, and the entire length of the park was
completed after the completion of Helsinki's first theater building, the
predecessor of the current Swedish Theater, in 1827. In the mid-19th
century, the entire park was also called Allmänna promenade, and the
Finnish equivalent was on the 1866 map The Esplanade, or Visiting Field.
The Finnish names of the different parts of the Esplanade were confirmed
in 1909 as Teatteriesplanaadi, Runeberginesplanaadi and
Kappeliesplanaadi. The spelling of the names was changed to the present
in 1928.
Public art in Esplanadi Park and Kauppatori
The
public artworks of Esplanadi Park, its surroundings and Kauppatori from
west to east.
Pohjoisesplanadi has been proposed as a pedestrian street in such a
way that the car lane is reserved for cafes, restaurants and cyclists.
The speed of Eteläesplanadi could be reduced to 20 km per hour, which
would reduce car noise and the sounds of city driving.
Around the
Esplanade, an underground water pool with a capacity of tens of millions
of liters has been built at a depth of 40-50 meters, which will serve as
a cold water storage for district cooling in the future.