Remember the derelict building I photographed? Well, I was given this photo from its prime. The best thing is we actually see what went on back then. I’ll do you a favour and translate for those not Danish 🙂

If we start at the left there was a dairy, Mejeri (this is before refrigerators so you had to get milk daily). Next a shop selling coffee, Kaffemagasinet Holland, a fish dealer, Fiskehuset, a butcher is on the corner (the signs advertise the selling of meat and if you have seen my pictures you may recall there were still parts of the old letters left). As far as I can make out the first shop around the corner is a leather store, ‘Sundby Læderhandel’. Next to it I see the letters ‘NI’. On this website it’s clear to see that sign says ‘Nilo’. The letters were still there when I was photographing but I don’t seem to have captured them. I’m afraid I don’t know what kind of brand Nilo was.

Above the entrance to the butcher there’s a sign saying ‘Pension’ so apparently you could rent a room above the shops – with a toilet in the back yard and no bathing facilities. Those were the good old days 🙂 The Danish website I referred to above states that by 1943 the pension was no longer there. The last sign on the front says ‘Ladestation’. It translates to charging station. I figure it would be an activity going on in the back yard but I’m not sure what they were charging.

The new restaurant in the new building is opening. It’s too dark here in Denmark during the winter for the kind of way I photograph. I also like just a bit of soul to what I work with and that can be hard to find with everything being brand new. But the owners has promised me I can have access in the spring and continue the project.