These days it is Manuel who, in the morning and at night, is in charge of open and close the park. He lives in one of the buildings that flank this site that adjoins the train tracks, on the islet formed by the streets of Sancho de Àvila, Pamplona, Tànger and Zamora, in the neighborhood of the Parc i la Llacuna del Poblenou. An objectively ugly place, with four banksurbanistically frayed. Provisionalaccording to him district of Sant Martí. A magnet for all the worst, according to the neighbors. That Manuel is the night watchman, that his is the task of managing the fence, is the result of six years of butting heads against the Administration. It all started with him bottle and incivilitynot sleeping and feel insecureand has ended with residents paying for the steel wall and, for now, managing their access.
It is as if this corner of Barcelona had become independent from the rest of the city. But no, because the sign that gives access to the supposed park It is the green color of all the parks, with the town hall logo and those little drawings with what can and cannot be done. But be careful, this piece of cardboard has also had to pay the neighbors. Altogether, the project it has come out for about 70,000 euros, between 300 and 500 euros per floor. The most they aspire to now is that the district receive the work and take charge of the fence so that they don’t have to go around arguing with those who, for example, don’t want leave the place. But for that to happen, the district demands a topographic study of a plot of land that is publicly owned. “We have not touched heights, this is absurd… And the land is theirs! Haven’t they done it?”, they complain.
Poop of all kinds
We will save you the photos provided by the neighborhood communities that include, in addition to the dirt left by any bottle, human excrement in all its possible textures, syringes, rats and condoms. There is no graphic document, but they have also been attacked on more than one occasion. They say that everything begins in 2016, when the construction of the buildings creates an interior of a public block that would have excited the very Ildefons Cerdawhich in its Barcelona expansion plan of 1859 foresaw that these places would be used for citizen enjoyment and not to offices or car parks, as would end up happening in the Eixample. Then there were no plastic cups nor those speakers as small as thugs. The urban planner did not take into account that his idea required two key elements: the good work of users and proper maintenance.
At first, in 2016, they tried to solve the situation with private surveillance, but that was an expensive and ineffective patch. The following year they began the path of the fence. It was then that they first heard the municipal argument of provisionality. “I don’t know what concept they have of what it is and it’s not provisional, but at this rate we will all end up in the mental hospital“, shares Ada, one of the neighbors of Sancho de Àvila, who admits that these two weeks of night closing “they are already very noticeable“. The problem, he continues, is that they have very close nightlife temples like Razzmatazz, and they are also in the transit area of the Marina metro stop. Public transport and the night…, the same thing happened to the residents of Vila Olímpica with the line 4 stop, which filled Moscow street with a very bad life.
“I never imagined that the deal with the Administration could be so long and full of obstacles”
A district spokesman maintains that it is a “temporary spacesince it is planned that a sports equipment in which in the Barcelona Esports Institute is already working”. The project is, points out this same voice, in the process of tendering the drafting of the executive project, so things seem to be going a long way. It also reports that the council accepted the fence proposed and installed by the neighbors and soon, he maintains, “they plan visit space to evaluate the possibility of assuming the opening and closing of the land”.
“Third World”
Patrick is another of the watchmen. There are four in total, all men. He is one of the people who has been most on top of the entire process. He admits that he has done a master’s degree in Public Administration, that he never imagined that this “would be so complicated, so full of obstacles“. Observes the park from a ramp. Considers it “third world“. They have written a chronology of these six years. It is 16 pages and you laugh at the patience of a mother. They have insisted again and again. In all possible instances. Until finally, in 2019, they were given permission and with the pandemic the bull caught them and everything accelerated at the end of 2021, when the works began so that the two year license will expire. “Just imagine having to start over from scratchIt gives me goosebumps.”
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In Sancho de Ávila, Patrick points to the opposite sidewalk, where there is another fence, also paid for by the neighbors in collaboration with a hotel. They had the same problems and followed an identical process: the district told them to the problem was well worth closing, but the cost of the work (in their case, about 100,000 euros) they had to assume. And they did. That did not generate excessive noise, as this case has done. In fact, although everything is already finished, the municipal group of ERC will ask the district about the matter to clarify why the council is taking so long to take over the fence.
Manuel no longer complains like before. He says that he is angry about paying so many taxes and that paying out of his own pocket for something that, in his opinion, should be paid by the city council, makes him angry. He makes her angry but it doesn’t make her sleepy like the bottle did. By the way, the ones that open and close have a whatsapp group. They are ‘the serene ones’, of course.