Ruoholahti

Ruoholahti (Swedish: Gräsviken) is a quarter in Helsinki, part of the Länsisatama neighbourhood and Kampinmalmi district. The name means Grass Bay and is pronounced [ˈruoholɑhti]. Ruoholahti is located in the southwestern part of the central city area of Helsinki, close to the Lauttasaari island, and it functions as the principal connection between the Helsinki city centre and the city of Espoo to the west. As of 2005^[update] Ruoholahti is inhabited by approx. 3300 people. The Länsisatama port is also situated in Ruoholahti.

The Ruoholahti area was created in the 1910s by connecting several small islands with earth fill. Its purpose was to accommodate the above mentioned port. In the 1940s there also developed a small industrial district whose most notable buildings were the cable factory of Nokia (which later became a cultural centre when Nokia gave up cable manufacturing and moved on to telecommunications), the headquarters of the Finnish government-owned alcohol enterprise Alko (transformed in 2002 into the Ruoholahti shopping centre), and the legendary Lepakko or Lepakkoluola (Bat cave), an old warehouse building used in 1967-1979 as emergency accommodation for homeless alcoholics and then, from 1979 to 1999 as an independent centre of youth culture from 1979 to 1999 (it was demolished to make way for an office building). In the 1960s the Länsiväylä highway was built through Ruoholahti to connect Helsinki to southern Espoo.

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