An exhibition in the civic center of Can Calders remember the historic neighborhood fights until they finally started the works to bury the railway tracks
“Who more who less, everyone in the neighborhood knows someone who has died in the level crossing; is a black dot in the city”, they point out from the neighborhood Association
On a large canvas hung from the facade of the Civic Center Les Tovalloles, a few meters from the train track, the photograph of a demonstration through the streets of the neighborhood in 80’s years. This is the poster ‘The last look before burial. The past and present of Can Calders in images’, shows that he remembers the historical fights of a neighborhood that, at last, seems to be about to experience the long-awaited transformation that the battled burial of the tracks. Some roads through whose dangerous level crossing some 10,000 people. tearing wound the city, where 150 trains pass every day, they have the barriers down 50 minutes every hour.
The crowded passage on the tracks impress outsiders -not accustomed to seeing danger so closely-, which is a black dot for the neighbors. In addition to the cumbersome logistics of having to cross it several times a dayWho else in the neighborhood knows someone whose life the train has taken there, with all the pain that this entails. “This exhibition was a pending subject with the memory of a neighborhood that has suffered a lot and has fought for everything,” sums up Maribel González, secretary of the Can Calders neighborhood association, entity that commissioned the exhibition Baix Llobregat Regional Archive, who guard and care with care for all kinds of material on the popular history of the territory.
One of the most striking images in the exhibition is a black and white photography taken by Blaise Serrano the June 16, 1983 of the great demonstration that was a inflection point in the fight for burial. The deadly hit a few days before a teacher shocked the neighborhood -and the city-, and it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. All neighborhood associations Sant Feliu de Llobregat -at that time, early 80s, with a big muscle– They said enough. They organized themselves to demand a solution to the problem and called a big protest that, as they remember from the County Archive, finished with clashes between neighbors and security forces.
The photographic tour -tribute to an entire neighborhood- does not only explain the fight for burial. “The residents of Can Calders were also pioneers in the fight for equality and for divorce. We want future generations to know how we got here. That is why we plan to work on all this material with the schools,” concludes the association’s secretary.
The future to write
In addition to looking back, the neighbors want and need to look forward. On June 22, the works began, which are expected to cost 130 million and extend 44 months. In addition, saying goodbye to the tracks will also mean hello to 44,000 new square meters of public land to draw. To decide what will happen on top of it, what they will become, the consistory organized andBetween November 8 and 21 a pioneering participatory process that included the participation of 6,300 residents of Sant Feliu and who bet -with 2,790 votes– for turning space into a green boulevard
The consultation was double. As well as whether the space had to be a green boulevard -the winning option- a promenade or a large garden -three very similar options, basically- the query also asked about the future of the current station, incompatible with burial. It offered the possibility of making a replica of the original building or of integrating a memory space of the original building in the new Sant Feliu station, the winning option.
still incredulous
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Despite the fact that the consistory valued very positively the participation figures -6,299 people from a census of 38,840 (those over 16 years of age), 16.22%, Gonzalez regrets the little participation registered in his neighborhood, one of the most affected by the dangerousness of the level crossing. “After so many years and so many times that it had to be done, but in the end it was not, people are still very skeptical and incredulous. Many neighbors had laziness; people are still waiting, to see what happens,” summarizes the neighbor.
As for that “let’s see what happens”, little by little –too much in the eyes of the already tired neighbors– The works are progressing. Last Friday the city council reported the beginning of the demolition of the wall parallel to the railway line Jacint Verdaguer, at the height Pi i Margall, and in the next few days the demolition will continue until it reaches the confluence with Montejurra street.
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