Tales of the Table · Tales of the Table
Hótel Ísland (1882–1944) – Lost Tables
Johan Hallberg put up a large building on the corner of Aðalstræti and Austurstræti and began hotel and restaurant service there in 1882; after extensions it took the name Hótel Ísland, and it changed hands several times before Alfreð Rosenberg acquired it in 1928. For two decades it was a centre of
Johan Hallberg put up a large building on the corner of Aðalstræti and Austurstræti and began hotel and restaurant service there in 1882; after extensions it took the name Hótel Ísland, and it changed hands several times before Alfreð Rosenberg acquired it in 1928. For two decades it was a centre of Reykjavík's music life, with bands playing light classics in the afternoon and dance music or jazz in the evening – among them the Austrian 'Vienna trio' of Carl Billich, Josef Felzmann and Felix Czerny, hired in 1933, and the Spanish band that brought José Riba to Iceland. When Britain occupied Iceland in 1940 the Austrian musicians were interned, and Icelandic players such as Óskar Cortes, Þorvaldur Steingrímsson and Bjarni Böðvarsson largely took over the bandstand. Fire broke out in a storage loft on the night of 2–3 February 1944 and the hotel burned to the ground in about two hours, while firefighters kept it from spreading to the wooden houses around it. Hotel music moved on to Hótel Borg, and the lot was never rebuilt: it became a car park known as Hallærisplan and in 1993 was merged into today's Ingólfstorg.
Ingólfstorg
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