Madrid No Frills

Housing

52 flats at Tribulete 7 are facing mass eviction but tenants are fighting back

31 January 2024

José, 71, is a lifelong tenant of Calle Tribulete 7 in Lavapiés. His daughter Blanca, who José calls ‘Blankita’, spent the first 30 years of her life here. Despite no longer living here, she has taken up the mantle – along with her mother Blanca – of defending the apartment in which her parents have lived for more than 40 years.

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The barrio of Pan Bendito has the lowest life expectancy in Madrid – here’s the data

29 January 2024

Pan Bendito is a small pentagonal barrio in east Carabanchel, 6km from Sol. The name originates from the wheat fields on which it was built in 1963 to accommodate rural Spanish migrants who had arrived during Madrid’s industrial boom in the decades before. They’d previously been living in one of Madrid’s 30,000 shantytowns and vertical slums.

Culture

Did you know that a tiny bit of the Camino de Santiago exists between two Madrid metro stations?

28 January 2024

Following the train tracks (and veering off them every now and again) reveals the industrial past of the Jarama Valley: current and disused railway infrastructure, an old fly-tipping zone (with a warning sign in pesetas!), bunkers and abandoned agricultural buildings. Dipping into Arganda, you can also visit a tiny barrio of only casas bajas with traditional door curtains and, of course, lots of storks.

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Investigation: Counting the invisible victims of Spain’s EU borders

12 December 2023

Investigation finds hundreds of victims of migration to the EU lie in unmarked graves along Spain’s borders, with government taking no coordinated action to guarantee “last rights”.

Culture

Lo Que Atesoro: Un proyecto fotográfico visibiliza la vida de los mayorxs de Carabanchel

5 December 2023

La idea de este proyecto, que se llama Lo Que Atesoro, era animar a nuestros no-nativos digitales más establecidos a adentrarse en el mundo de la fotografía. Quería que captáran sus vidas de la misma manera que lo hacen las generaciones más jóvenes, para que nosotros también podamos entender las cosas que ellos atesóran.

The Violence of Gentrification: a talk by Leah Pattem

16 November 2023

Throughout November and December, I will explain with first-hand experience how and why Lavapiés has intentionally been targeted by the authorities. I take a critical view on the previously held perception that gentrification is slow, passive, and inevitable, which I firmly believe it is not.

History

Portrait of Madrid’s Royal Botanical Garden workers

6 November 2023

The Royal Botanical Gardens in Madrid turned 278 this year, and has become a living museum with over 5,500 living species. Since its founding, it's also been a centre for scientific research with a vast library of over a million flora samples which are constantly being exchanged with other research centres across the globe.

Culture

ASÍ SOY YO! Kids’ photography project in Barrio San Cristobal celebrates ‘selfie’ expression

31 October 2023

All photos in this exhibition were taken by the children using eight second-hand pocket digital cameras from around the turn of the millennium. For many of the children, aged between six and 13 years old, this was the first time they had ever seen one of these cameras, which brought an extra level of magic to the whole photography process.

Culture

Villa de Vallekas Fiestas in photos: fried food, fairground rides and stormy nights

15 September 2023

After the hottest summer on record, the skies are filled with constant lightning and the fiesta grounds are intermittently flooding. But nothing can stop the smoke machines pluming into the neon lights of the fairground rides, or the pounding of reggaeton while families and friends bump each other on the dodgem dance floor. Here's a snapshot of the summer fiestas in Villa de Vallekas.

Climate

Madrid’s DANA disaster shows why weather warnings require trust

7 September 2023

A DANA (a mass of high-altitude cold air mixes with warm humid air from the Mediterranean) hit Spain yesterday, affecting Madrid and Toledo the worst. Emergency services responded to around 1,500 incidents of people trapped in their cars and homes, which left two people dead and two more missing.

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It’s Spain’s historic and widespread feminist movements that caused the Rubiales case to explode

30 August 2023

If it weren’t for the Spanish people taking to the streets and social media, creating new chants and slogans, Rubiales would never have hit the headlines and the newspapers would surely have moved on by now.

Climate

New study reveals Madrid has the worst Urban Heat Island Effect

23 August 2023

Urban Heat Snapshot (UHS), a research project by Arup university, studied and compared the Urban Heat Island Effect (UHIE) of six major cities: Cairo, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Mumbai and New York. Results revealed that out of all six cities, Madrid’s UHIE was the most extreme.

Climate

‘No a la Tala!’: As Madrid’s mass tree felling begins, residents are fighting back

26 July 2023

On Monday, less than 24 hours after the election in which we saw the right lose nationally, the same right-wing-run city council began preparations for works on Calle Áncora to expand Madrid’s metro network. These works come at the sacrifice of over 1000 mature trees, which residents are strongly resisting.

Climate

Pool drama brings Madrid’s climate crisis to the surface

20 July 2023

Pool tickets go on sale online 49 hours before doors open. Within two or three minutes, all 585 tickets to the city centre’s only public outdoor pool, Peñuelas, are gone. Over the past few weeks, a conspiracy theory grew that a few people were monopolising tickets, booking them quickly and then selling them off to their friends. The theory appeared partly true when a 400-strong neighbourhood WhatsApp group called ‘Peñuelas pool’ hit the headlines, with members being called a “mafia of families”.

Climate

Madrid’s climate inequality: temperature readings reveal 15-degree difference between rich and poor barrios

10 July 2023

A group of local activists launched the citizens’ initiative #termometrada on Saturday with the aim of regularly reading temperatures in 169 locations around Madrid. Measurements will be taken at various times of the day: at sunrise, two hours after sunset, and at 5pm, when heat peaks across the city. Readings are taken electronically, at head-height and in the shade. After several minutes, the reading will settle and can be recorded.