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Register was last modified: July 25th, 2019 by Madrid No Frills

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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 🚢🛶⛵🐙🦐🐟

Whenever I stand at the top of Calle Buenavista in

Whenever I stand at the top of Calle Buenavista in Lavapiés, I always feel like I can just about see the Mediterranean on the horizon with the continent of Africa just beyond 🔭🌅 A bit like this!

This print of 'Lavapiés frente al Mar' is available in the following sizes:

🖼️ A4: €25
🖼️ A3: €35

📮 Postage is global, pick-up is free, handed over by me, Leah! 🙋🏾‍♀️

📦 All materials and printing is done locally in my barrio, Lavapiés, and postage (tracked) is with Spain's state postal service @correos. Orders can be processed and ready within just three days of payment! 🌪️

📨 To make an order, simply email me, Leah, at hola@madridnofrills.com with the size and print you want!

As Madrileñes flock to the Costas, they're not be

As Madrileñes flock to the Costas, they're not being replaced by the usual tourists that don't mind the desert heat and it's feeling like a ghost town right now!

Here's some slightly dramatic footage of what it feels like, 'tumble weed' and all 👻🏜️

The first photo is a still from Pedro Almodóvar's

The first photo is a still from Pedro Almodóvar's 2006 film Volver of Raimunda, played by Penelope Cruz, walking up an old street of traditional one-storey houses in #Vallekas.

Everything set up in this scene is perfectly Vallekas, right down to the family sitting outside their house, Raimunda's handbag hung around her shopping trolley, and the plastic bag of potatoes she's carrying home to make a tortilla.

This entire row of casas bajas was demolished several years ago during the mid-crisis construction boom, but it's still wasteland. There are possibly over 100 empty plots dotted around Vallekas – some of them now community gardens like @sputnik_vk🌵🌱

The rest of the photos are from different periods of the last hundred years, including a few of my own from over the last few years.

Just like its housing, Vallekas is a barrio in transition caught in an endless pattern of optimism followed by depression followed by optimism and so on. It began as far back as during the Spanish Civil War and is still felt today, and goes some way towards explaining the fierce and anarchistic character of Vallekanes 🔥

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