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Latest Posts

Spain’s new historic memory bill aims to finally tackle the legacy of Franco
20 July 2021
Madrid’s youth fight back against the gambling epidemic invading our barrios
16 July 2021
Evictions are state violence and institutional theft
15 July 2021
The forgotten victims of Filomena
13 July 2021
Why Spain should bring back ‘botellón’ and let young people meet in groups to drink outside
1 July 2021

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Brand-new Patreon post for my Map holders just up,

The 'Last Survivor' of Vallekas, painted beautiful

The 'Last Survivor' of Vallekas, painted beautifully by @carlosbrayda 🏠✊🏾

En Lavapiés, hay playa! Mira mira! 🏖️ 🌅

En Lavapiés, hay playa! Mira mira! 🏖️

🌅 Lavapiés frente al Mar III 🌅

Mayorista de Chatarra is a local scrap metal deale

Mayorista de Chatarra is a local scrap metal dealer in Lavapiés that’s been going strong for over 100 years, and especially for the last ten.

Spain’s financial crises are having a profound effect on young people, but its impact on older, working-age men is often overlooked. After a life of working in one trade, it's difficult to learn new skills or be hired as you approach the end of your working life. And so, with scrap metal being a profitable business that requires no skills or qualifications – just physical strength and a magnet – scavenging the streets becomes a viable way to make a living. It doesn’t require you to speak the local language either, often attracting marginalised communities and migrants.

The collectors bring their haul of scrap then the chatarrero goes through it with a magnet – if it sticks, it’s probably iron and is almost worthless. If it doesn’t stick, it’s either aluminium or copper or – even better – silver or gold. Once the metal is sorted, the chatarrero weighs it and writes out a cheque.

The scrap is then sold on in bulk to a much larger dealer, for a reasonable profit, before being shipped to the new industrial capitals of the world. Once there, the scrap is melted down and recycled for use in everything from microchips to ships.

The industry has a dark side, with a lot of scrap metal being stolen from private property such as houses or railway lines. After Madrid’s construction bust, entire neighbourhoods were left unoccupied and unmaintained, and this is where many thefts now take place. Wiring and pipes and an absence of security cameras, occupants or neighbours means thieves can strip the walls, ceilings and floors without fear of being caught copper-handed.

Police often make visits to scrap dealers to trace stolen metal. If dealers pay their collectors with a cheque, this creates a paper trail that ultimately deters any scrappers from collecting illegally.

Perhaps you’re after an antique chandelier, radiator, antenna for your radio, a car part or even an engine? If you’re willing to carefully navigate the labyrinth of precious piles, you can find anything and everything in this 100-square-metre treasure trove.

Yesterday, @unesco granted world heritage status t

Yesterday, @unesco granted world heritage status to Madrid's Retiro Park, further burying the racist history that this park, and specifically the Palacio de Cristal, holds.

Just outside the Palacio, on the edge of the lake, there is a small, weathered plaque explaining that this building was built to host the 1887 Exhibition of the Philippines. Made of steel and glass, it was designed as a greenhouse to be able to support a warm and humid environment for the plants imported from one of the farthest corners of the former Spanish Empire.

What this plaque deliberately omits is that 43 Igorot people were also brought to Madrid as part of the exhibition, where they would be housed in straw huts, made to fish in this lake, wear minimal clothing, dance, and slaughter, cook and eat a dog a day. When finally repatriated after five months in Madrid, four died en route back to the Philippines.

It's this kind of fact omitting that makes us doubt the truth – the truth that is very inconvenient for a very specific group of people. Retiro Park's UNESCO status is yet another layer with which Spain chooses to bury its shameful and racist colonial past. Leaving the story of Madrid's human zoo buried demonstrates a lack of will for Spain to learn from the mistakes of its past and closer to making them all over again.

But the truth must finally be acknowledged. Time for that plaque to be updated!

Share this post if you agree and let's get some momentum behind it!!! 💪🏾

Here's another in my series of Lavapiés frente al

Here's another in my series of Lavapiés frente al Mar 🌅

If Madrid was by the sea, Lavapiés would be its port 🚢🛶⛵🐙🦐🐟

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