City-Center

Hercules is a gay bar and nightclub in Helsinki, Finland. Operating since 2000, it is the third establishment opened by Moek Trading Oy, a partnership between restaurateurs Erkki Koski and Mika Olkkonen. Hercules caters primarily to gay men over 30, and its live entertainment features drag queens and strippers. The bar was located in Helsinki's Kamppi neighborhood until the end of 2015, when a hotel took over its space. It subsequently reopened at an address in Etu-Töölö, where it endured a number of events that caused financial strain. That location closed in December 2020, when the building was sold to new owners. The club then reopened across the street from Helsinki's central railway station in October 2021. Critics generally describe Hercules as popular, edgy and welcoming.

Kaivokatu (Swedish: Brunnsgatan) is a short street in central Helsinki, Finland. It runs past the Central Station and station square, connecting Mannerheimintie in the west with Mikonkatu in the east (after which the road continues as Kaisaniemenkatu). Towards its eastern end is located the Ateneum art museum of the Finnish National Gallery. Kaivokatu carries heavy road traffic, forming the link between the main thoroughfares in and out of the city, eastbound via Hämeentie and westbound via Mannerheimintie, as well as several tram and bus routes. To reduce its traffic load, the City Council decided in 2023 to comprehensively rebuild the Kaivokatu area in 2026–2027, as part of which the street will be closed to private cars and remain open to only public transport, bicycles and pedestrians, a controversial plan which received plenty of attention and vocal resistance as well as support. The street gets its name, which literally means "well street" from the 19th-century Kluuvi well (Globrunnen), located on what is now the corner of Kaivokatu and Keskuskatu. The name in Finnish was first attested in 1866, and made official in 1909. Underneath the western end of Kaivokatu is the underground shopping centre Asematunneli, and below that, the Central Railway Station metro station of the Helsinki Metro.

Asematunneli (Swedish: Stationstunneln) is an underground shopping center connecting the Helsinki Central railway station and City-Center in downtown Helsinki, Finland. The area also has a ticket sales area for the Rautatientori metro station and connections to the nearby Forum shopping mall as well as Stockmann and Sokos department stores. The shops and supermarkets in Asematunneli are licensed to stay open longer than normal as well as during the national holidays, making the shopping center an important location for last minute and emergency shopping for the people of the greater Helsinki area. Kamppi Center and the bottom floor of Sähkötalo across Fredrikinkatu can also be accessed via tunnels by going through the Forum shopping mall first. The interconnecting areas provide for convenient movement across a wide area of central Helsinki, and allow pedestrians to escape the rain, snow, and cold weather that dominate much of the Finnish calendar. Asematunneli was built by digging up Kaivokatu and pouring concrete canopies for the tunnels in 1966–1967.

Keskuskatu (Finnish, Swedish: Centralgatan), meaning "central street", is a two block long walking street in the centre of Helsinki, Finland. Along the street are located, counting from the southern end on Pohjoisesplanadi street, the Stockmann department store, the Rautatalo building, Domus Litonii, WTC Helsinki and the shopping centre City-Center, nicknamed "Makkaratalo" ("sausage house"). Keskuskatu ends at Kaivokatu opposite to the Helsinki Central railway station. Halfway through the street it is crossed by Aleksanterinkatu.

The Central Railway Station metro station (Finnish: Rautatientorin metroasema, Swedish: Järnvägstorgets metrostation) is a station on the Helsinki Metro. The entrance is located in the Asematunneli main hall, which has an exit to the Helsinki Central Railway Station. It is among the only Helsinki Metro stations whose names are announced in English, in addition to Finnish and Swedish. As one of the original metro stations, Central Railway Station was opened on 1 July 1982 and was designed by Rolf Björkstam, Erkki Heino, and Eero Kostiainen. It is located 0.5 kilometres (0.31 mi) from Kamppi metro station, and 0.6 kilometres (0.37 mi) from University of Helsinki metro station. The station is situated at a depth of 27 metres (89 ft) below ground level and 22 metres (72 ft) below sea level. On 8 November 2009 a water main burst, flooding and causing significant damage to the underground station complex. On February 15, 2010 the station reopened for public use.

The World Trade Center Helsinki is a world trade center for financial companies and bureaus, located in central Helsinki, Finland. The building is located on Aleksanterinkatu very close to the main building of the University of Helsinki and to the Stockmann department store. On the first floor, the building houses a branch office of the Nordea bank, an Italian restaurant, and several bars. The architect Pauli E. Blomstedt was just 26 when he won the competition for the design of the building for the Liittopankki (Union Bank) in the Nordic Classicism style. It was completed in 1929.

Stockmann Helsinki Centre is a culturally significant business building and department store located in the centre of Helsinki, Finland. It is one of many department stores owned by the Stockmann corporation. It is the largest department store in the Nordic countries in terms of area and total sales. The store is known for carrying all the internationally recognised luxury brands, and Stockmann's enjoys a reputation as the primary high-end department store in Finland. Stockmann Delicatessen, the food and beverage department located at the basement level, is renowned for the quality and choice of its foodstuffs. The Stockmann logo represents a set of escalators, which are commonly, but wrongly believed represent the first escalators in Finland. The first escalators in Finland were installed in the Forum department store, Turku (1926). In 2017, Stockmann Helsinki Centre was the fifth largest department store in Europe with area of 50,500 square meters. Especially the clock at the main entrance, colloquially "Stockan kello" ("Stocka's clock"), has become a symbol of Helsinkian city culture as a popular meeting place. Valter Thomé and his brother won the architecture competition for the department store in 1916. The Thomé brothers were killed in the Finnish Civil War. The building was built in 1930, and the task was then given to Sigurd Frosterus who had been on the second place in the original competition. The department store was designed in nordic Art Deco style. It is part of the Gazelle block in the district of Kluuvi. The new expansion of the building is based on Sigurd Frosterus's plans.

The Old Student House (Finnish: Vanha ylioppilastalo, colloquially called Vanha, "the old one"; Swedish: Gamla studenthuset) is the former student house of the Student Union of the University of Helsinki, located in central Helsinki, Finland, near the crossing of Aleksanterinkatu and Mannerheimintie.

The Three Smiths Statue is a sculpture by Felix Nylund, situated in Helsinki, Finland, in Three Smiths Square at the intersection of Aleksanterinkatu and Mannerheimintie. This realistic statue, unveiled in 1932, depicts three naked smiths hammering on an anvil. Felix Nylund submitted a design for a smith statue for a memorial for Johan Vilhelm Snellman in 1913. In 1919 he designed a monumental statue with three smiths located on top of a stone pillar ten metres high. Neither of these designs was actually made into a statue, but Nylund took advantage of his previous designs when sculpting the Three Smiths Statue. Of the three smiths depicted in the statue, one is a master smith holding the iron on an anvil. The other two smiths are hammering on the iron. Nylund used wrestlers from the gymnastics and sports club Jyry as models for the smiths' bodies. The master smith has the face of poet Arvid Mörne, the smith holding his hammer up has Nylund's own face, and the smith holding his hammer down has the face of sculptor Aku Nuutinen. It is said that mason Paavo Koskinen and police officer Sundström posed as models for the bodies. The top part of the bronze statue's granite base is encircled by the Latin text MONUMENTUM – CURAVIT – LEGATUM – J. TALLBERGIANUM – PRO HELSINGFORS A.D. MCMXXXII ("The statue was erected with the help of a donation from J. Tallberg by Pro Helsingfors in the year 1932"). The statue was donated to the city of Helsinki by the Pro Helsingfors foundation, which had acquired it with the help of a monetary donation by the businessman Julius Tallberg. Tallberg's commerce house is situated at the northern end of the Three Smiths Square. The statue was damaged in a bombing during the Continuation War in 1944. Marks of the damage can still be seen in the base of the statue, and the anvil has a hole caused by a bomb shrapnel. The Three Smiths Square is a popular meeting place. There is a heating system underneath Aleksanterinkatu keeping the street free from snow and ice even in temperatures of -10 degrees Celsius. The heat comes from warm water flowing from the nearby buildings. Thus people can sit at the statue even in wintertime. Upon close investigation of the statue, it can be seen that the positions of the smiths are more artistic than realistic: the smiths are standing so close to each other that if they were to actually hammer, they would hit each other on the head instead of the anvil. The original gypsum models of the statue have been located in the library of the Finnish Workers' Academy in Kauniainen.Nowadays the statue is annually capped with Santa Claus hats at the end of November at the Wappujoulu event of the University of Helsinki student organisation Limes.In spring 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic surgical masks were placed on the smiths and an effigy of the Coronavirus was placed on the anvil so it looked like the smiths were hammering down on the virus.

Rautatalo (Swedish: Järnhuset) is an office building in central Helsinki, Finland, completed in 1955, and notable for having been designed by the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto.The building is based on Aalto's winning entry, Casa, to a 1951 design contest. It was commissioned for the Finnish Hardware Association, after which it is named: Rautatalo literally translates as 'Iron House' or 'Iron Building'; hardware stores in Finnish being called rautakauppa ('iron shop', compare with 'ironmongers').The exterior character of the building is dark and austere, clad with copper plate on its main façade and brown brick on the side elevation. It was designed to match the height and proportions of the earlier building, created in classical style by Eliel Saarinen, which it abuts on one side (seen in the photo on the right).In contrast to the exterior, the interior is light and airy, making extensive use of white Carrara marble and travertine. At the heart of the interior space is an enclosed atrium, naturally-lit through 40 skylights, known as Marmoripiha ('Marble Courtyard'), with its design inspired by Mediterranean architecture.The lower floors house retail premises, including a café in the atrium space, with offices located on the upper floors.The building's exterior and much of its interior features have protected status.

Helsinki Central Station (Finnish: Helsingin päärautatieasema, Swedish: Helsingfors centralstation) (HEC) is the main station for commuter rail and long-distance trains departing from Helsinki, Finland. The station is used by approximately 400,000 people per day, of which about 200,000 are passengers. It serves as the terminus for all trains in the Helsinki commuter rail network, as well as for all Helsinki-bound long-distance trains in Finland. The Rautatientori (Central Railway Station) metro station is located in the same building. The station building was designed by Eliel Saarinen and inaugurated in 1919. Helsinki Central was chosen as one of the world's most beautiful railway stations by BBC in 2013.

On 4 January 2010 at the Helsinki Central Station, four empty passenger carriages overran the buffers of platform 13. The carriages had broken free of their train during a shunting manoeuvre and ran under gravity down the gentle hill from Linnunlaulu before being diverting into an empty platform and impacting the buffers at 20–30 kilometres per hour.The eight-carriage train arriving from the depot had been due to form the 08:12 departure running from Helsinki to Kajaani, through central Finland via Lahti and Kuopio. The formation which broke away consisted of three double-decker "Intercity 2" carriages, followed by a single-decker restaurant car. The runaway carriages were quickly detected and deliberately routed into one of the shorter commuter platforms (fitted with large concrete barriers beyond the buffers) in order to minimise damage to the main station area. Passengers aboard an adjacent commuter train waiting to depart were ordered to leave their train and run away from the area and announcements were made over the station's loudspeaker system. The first carriage of the four runaway cars mounted the concrete barrier. Members of the public in an Ernst & Young office beyond the end of the platform and those in the Holiday Inn hotel above the platforms all escaped without injury. The first carriage then struck the hotel's conference room, causing extensive damage to the room. The conductor aboard the train as it came in sustained light injuries to their arm, with nobody else injured.Services had resumed—at a reduced level by the afternoon—following repairs to damage to the overhead line. The Finnish Accident Investigation Board announced that they would proceed with an investigation into why the brakes had not automatically applied. A restaurant car and one of the passenger carriages were towed to the depot by a diesel locomotive during the course of the night, after which the front carriage was partially dragged back out of the hotel building. The building that had taken the force of the crash was deemed to be structurally sound.On 18 January 2010 the Finnish Accident Investigation Board made available their interim report which concluded that the incident had been caused by a combination of bad weather and then human error. Initially, snow and ice had caused the front carriages to detach from the rest of the train; followed by the guard having released the brakes manually—not realizing that the two halves of the train were no longer coupled.