Our cheap Garden Corner in our hotel on Lisbon’s best location Graça has a story.

Why do most hotels have Identical rooms?

We have always asked ourselves this questions.

Hotels varies in terms of style, ambiance, quality, services etc. But once you have chosen the place you want to stay – cheap or expensive doesn’t matter – except for the size and a few amenities all rooms are more or less identical.

We have never understood that. The people we have met in the more than 2,000 hotels we have stayed in all over the world are all different in terms of race, color, age, religion, nationality, political orientation, sexual orientations, fashion & hair-style, vegetarians, meat-eaters, alcoholics, sober and all other imaginable ways.

So why have identical rooms? We don’t! All rooms at Tings Lisbon are different. In all ways. Just like our guests.

The ‘only’ thing (-s) that binds them together, is that they each have a unique ambiance or personality they get from Annette who has created them. Mostly from items from our life together and before: Our old furniture, art, utensils, nitty-gritty-things etc are scattered all over Tings Lisbon.

Garden Corner at Tings Lisbon - Morning Light

Garden Corner at Tings Lisbon - The View

Garden Corner at Tings Lisbon - Bathroom

Our Garden Corner Room is Thomas' favorite.

The room is very small, very basic and very romantic. And kind of minimalistic with a small sky window so you look up at the lemons in the tree that shelter this small cottage-style room from your bed.

The art on the wall are original high quality photos by Jacob Riis, from his book: How The Other Half Lives.

Most famous of these was Riis’ image of a Lower East Side street gang, which conveys the danger that lurked around every bend. Such work became the basis of his revelatory book How the Other Half Lives, which forced Americans to confront what they had long ignored and galvanized reformers like the young New York politician Theodore Roosevelt, who wrote to the photographer, “I have read your book, and I have come to help.”

TIME 100 Photos

The story about the room - or the art - is quite funny

When you enter Tings Lisbon you find a small collection of Jacob Riis’ works on the wall to your left. We had too many photos for the small Garden Corner Room and needed something for the big white wall. So we placed them there – and it looks good.

It turned out to be a very good idea – especially around rush-hours when guests are checking in or out and sometimes have to wait a few minutes for their bills and/or an UBER. They kill time and de-stress in front of these amazing works.

They don’t ask it loud – they think it loud: Why all these photos of poverty? Why these old photos – why not something trendy? And why here?

When I have the time, I usually tell the story. Right now I have a lot of Covid time to kill. So yesterday I told the story to a friend who came by to say hi.

The story surprised her. Why don’t you write it down? – she said.

I still have time – so here is the short version.

Who was Jacob Riis?

Jacob Riis is the epitome of the American Dream – almost like a fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen.

He was born in Ribe, Denmark in 1849, and immigrated to New York in 1870. It was impossible to find job – and without any income he ended up living in police lodging houses and begging for food.

Jacob Riis (l), President Theodore Roosevelt & Bishop John H. Vincent (r)

After 3 years with odd jobs Riis became a police reporter for The New York Evening Sun covering the Lower East Side. After a while Riis bought a camera to document the crime and poverty in this neighborhood. He convinced the paper to publish the photos which was how a young Theodore Roosevelt saw them. He got a chock. Like most others he didn’t know how half of America’s population lived. Nobody had seen photos from this part of America before. So without knowing it, Jacob Riis invented photojournalism.

More than that. Through his friendship with Roosevelt, who later became America’s President, he indirectly became involved in the president’s crusade against police corruption, poverty, modern tennant housing etc.

He is also believed to have introduced The Christmas Tree to the American’s… how cool is that?

How I got hold of the photos

Riis’ work became an important legacy for photographer’s that followed.

As a pioneer of investigative photojournalism, Riis would show others that through photography they can make a change.

Jacob Riis: The Photographer Who Showed “How the Other Half Lives” in 1890s NYC Kelly Richman-Abdou, 21 May, 2017

In September 2001 Annette and I returned to Copenhagen after having backpacked around the world for a year. We had NO jobs and no income and had to get work asap.

9/11 had just happened so times were a little strange and difficult. Out of the blue my old friend and future business partner, Troels Rasmussen, called me: I need your help.

Troels and Carsten Holst had teamed-up with Lars Von Trier and started Zentropa Reel.

They wanted to produce entertaining documentaries for a broad audience (almost 20 years before Netflix!!!)

One of them was Robert Fox’ Flash of a Dream about a guy I’d never heard about: Jacob Riis.

Can you promote it? Troels asked me, … we don’t have any money, he continued which I already knew LOL.

I loved the movie (and Peter Stomare’s amazing voice over) and had nothing else to do. So I accepted, and got involved….

I think the campaign went well...

As I remember it, everything worked out fine. I pissed off the Danish Embassy in New York because I managed to hand over the Video + invitation to the Premiere Opening at Lincoln Center to Mr. Clinton personally without involving them (I had no time to follow the ‘procedure’)…. one of the many unorthodox, anarchistic and cheap ‘elements’ I used to get the word out.

Troels was happy.

When I left the office he gave me an envelope with some prints from the production. This envelope followed me to Kathmandu without getting opened. When we unpacked the few belongings we brought with us to Lisbon, the envelope was still there.

I took it as a ‘sign’ and framed all Jacob’s amazing photos.

You can see when you enter Tings Lisbon – and if you sleep in our Garden Corner Room. I am pretty sure it’s the only place in Portugal where you have a chance to witness these unique pieces 🙂

Jacob Riis’ photos may be very old. BUT they are super cool and represents values we stand for: Consideration, initiative and integrity.

A few years later Troels asked if we should make a company together – a company that commercialized journalism. We were quite successful, I guess – still I got bored and left.

The little money I got out, we used to start up Tings…

So that concludes the circle.

See you,

Thomas