Sitting on folding chairs around a long table, full of the food that each one has brought, the residents of the Barcelona neighborhood of Torré Baró have gathered in their second home, the Center Obert. They talk in turns evaluating how the Christmas lights project has gone this year. From the window you can see one of these illuminated panels made by the children who participate in the social center: next to a Christmas ball, you can read “Comunitat Center Obert Torre Baró”.
Until a year ago, this peripheral neighborhood of Barcelona did not have the traditional Christmas decorations that abound in the center of any city. Now, its streets are illuminated thanks to the effort and organization of its neighbors. On this occasion, they have been inspired by scenes from the movie ‘El 47’, to remember the neighborhood fight they carried out half a century ago to get municipal buses to travel up their steep slopes. “Despite the success of ‘El 47’, we are still abandoned,” laments Valeria Ortiz, president of the Torre Baró Neighborhood Association.
The residents of the neighborhood denounce an institutional contempt towards the peripheries of the city that extends to details such as Christmas decorations. “We had been complaining for a long time that there were no Christmas lights in Torre Baró, and until we organized ourselves, no one paid attention to us, basically because we don’t have businesses,” explains neighbor Andrea Acevedo.
They finally achieved it through the initiative of the Pla de Barris of the North Zone in collaboration with the Center Obert. “We were inspired by the Raval neighborhood, which also decorated its own streets. They helped us the first year to light ours, but the current ones have been self-managed,” adds Maria Acevedo, also a resident of the place. Paid for through the municipal Plan de Barris, the lights have cost about 30,000 euros, but the labor and organization have been borne by the neighbors.
“The City Council has only come to take a photo,” emphasizes José Manuel Romero, member of the Neighborhood Association, very critical of a council that allocates 3.3 million this year – 13% more than last year – to decorating all kinds, especially the lights that hang both in the center and in the neuralgic avenues of each neighborhood.
Since September, residents have met two days a week at the Center Obert to prepare the lights. The process was collective with the coordination of Joan Ortega, social worker: while some drew the silhouettes, others were in charge of assembling the lights and another group was in charge of connectivity and installation. “It has been like a community kitchen,” highlights Montse Rodón, from Pla de Barris. In an area that lacks meeting points, bars or cafes, the cultural activities promoted by the neighbors not only illuminate the streets, but also strengthen the ties of the community, as they themselves explain.
A part of the neighborhood, specifically the South Zone, still does not have lighting. “This is because we only have a budget to be able to make and install 13 panels,” explains Andrea Acevedo. “In addition, access to that area is complicated and so is the electrical connection,” he clarifies.
The neighbors want to expand the project next year, so that a part continues to be financed by Pla de Barris, while the installation and connection of the lighting system is assumed by the City Council, remaining outside the budget of this municipal initiative. “This budget is intended for community projects for the neighborhood, and we would like to be able to do more things, not just light up our streets for Christmas,” admits Maria Acevedo.
An intergenerational fight
“In the face of any challenge, Torre Baró exists and resists,” says Romero, repeating the same phrase that illuminates one of the neighborhood’s streets. In another, the lights pay tribute to Manolo Vital, the bus driver, and his wife, Carmen Vila. Joel León, a young neighbor, emphasizes that despite the official and popular narratives that have tried to trivialize his story, the kidnapping of the 47 was not an act driven by the individual desperation of the driver, but rather a collective action, the result of a political strategy. conscious and a key chapter in the fight of an entire neighborhood for dignity.
“History has not changed that much: we continue shouting ‘Torre Baró exists and resists’. We continue to think that we are the ones behind the mountain and we continue to wonder if we are really Barcelona,” reflects Ortiz. “We are not the neighborhood of the 70s, but neither is the Barcelona of 2024,” adds Maria Acevedo.
Among the 13 panels, a suitcase stands out, a symbol of tribute to the migrant families who came to the neighborhood from different parts of the peninsula in the 50s and 60s. Romero remembers his mother, originally from Granada, who taught him since he was little. the importance of fighting for your neighborhood. “And that’s what I’ve done since I was 14,” he says, while remembering how, firsthand, he experienced the moment when the famous bus went up the slopes of Torre Baró.
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