This Sunday returns Major Festival of Gràcia, as it was before the coronavirus pandemic. The streets are back, the concerts, and also the final sprint of many neighbors to have everything ready. Gone are two years marked forever on the calendar. The one in 2020, when the party did not take place, and the one in 2021 when, at the last minute and with many capacity restrictions, the parties tried to repeat themselves. “How do we live it? You just have to look at us,” replies Susana Font, a member of Verdi’s street party commission, pointing to a couple of neighbors, moving her waist on top of a stage, to the sound of music. The enthusiasm is lived again in every corner of the neighborhood. But the fear of tourist overcrowding, noise and uncivil behavior at dawn is also very present.
It is 12 noon on Sunday, August 13, but not even the high temperatures stop the residents of Gràcia from finishing all the details of the decoration of its streets ahead of the afternoon proclamation. Arnau and Joanna, two twenty-year-olds carry a scaffold in the direction of Plaça del Diamant. “We didn’t know each other and now we are like family,” they joke. “We have been working on the decoration of Calle de la Perla for several weeks: from 11 in the morning until dawn,” they say. He is a resident of Sant Lluís street. She, adopted in the neighborhood, from Sant Gervasi. “It’s our first time at parties,” they nod.
New airs in the Pearl so as not to lose a tradition
It is the first time that they participate in the contest to decorate the streets of the neighborhood, the hallmark of the neighborhood festivities. In 2020, Calle de la Perla, like all the others, was not decorated. Neither did it in 2021. “If it was not decorated this year, all the aid would be lost and the tradition would end forever,” says Arnau. “The commission that was running it was older and they were already tired of pulling the cart, so a few of us decided to lend a hand so that this tradition is not lost,” explains Joana. The theme that decorates the street says it all: ‘The Pearl under construction’. There are mechanical tools hanging from the ceiling, tape measures, dilapidated buildings and even grandparents looking at the works. “It’s to tell them that we’re going to start over,” continues Joana.
81 years old and painting palm trees
Who has been celebrating for many years and decorating the streets is Joaquin Ordovas, an 81-year-old from Aragon who began participating in the contest in 1976 from Fraternitat de Dalt street. “We have done everything: a disco type, a Dumbo circus, Parcheesi, a shoe store…”, he recalls as he sees how the rest of his neighbors collaborate to recreate Polynesia this year. “Before, we prepared it 15 days before and without premises,” he explains to Àlex Camatx, a member of the street design commission. “Well, we started in February”replies the young man.
Ordovás is unable to leave the neighborhood for the holidays. He doesn’t even dare to watch the preparations for the party from the balcony, as his wife Fina does. She prepares pots of macaroni for all the neighbors involved.. He has painted bamboo canes made from cardboard and goes over the painting of the last palm trees made from newsprint. “Let’s see how it turns out” says nervous. “He is our head of quality control, he tells us everything so that we can do better,” replies a neighbor after giving the old man a big hug.
The street is safe again
Who also carries the parties of grace in the DNA is Laya Miller, member of the Tordera street party association. “I was born here and my father was an organizer of street decoration, I When I was little I was always here helping out, I don’t understand a summer without the Gràcia festivities“, she explains. That is why the last two, the pandemic and the restrictions, gave another impression to the neighborhood. “We discovered that it can be summer without Gràcia parties, and there are people who liked it,” says Miller. She is unable not to return to the street. This year the decoration is inspired by China, with a pagoda temple and a large dragon. “We have all collaborated: the most enthusiastic, a 14-year-old girl who has translated wishes into Chinese and now we are going to hang up,” she continues. “For usthe decoration is the least of it: we like to have recovered the street as a safe place, make links between neighbors and spend the afternoon together“, bill.
a windmill
On the other hand, there are other streets that have been working on decoration for more than three years. It is the case of the street of Verdi, which stages ‘Don Quixote’. The entrance is spectacular, with five majestic books hanging from the ceiling. Inside there several plaster figures that recreate the scenes of the classic of Spanish literature: from the donkey or Sancho Panza, through Cervantes, Dulcinea and even a windmill. At the moment the figures are white, the challenge is to paint them, dress them and put their hair on time. “Everything is to be done and everything is possible“, recites Susana Font, a member of the street commission. “We are happy, we can finally go back to doing what we like”, exclaims Font. “Now is the moment of more nerves, adrenaline… And I tell you one stuff, everything you learn decorating the street you can apply it in life: we work as a team for a goal, and if we don’t achieve it, we learn to rectify it”, he explains.
all night riding
Ade Samper is also another thinking head, in this case from the street Travessera of Sant Antoni, which recreates the theme of travel. “We wanted to recreate the experience of traveling, writing postcards… when you come back, how travel changes your life…”, she explains. That happened to her a bit. He has been in the neighborhood for 11 years. “I came for love,” she says. And are they still together? “Of course,” she replies happily. Samper, and the fifty volunteers from his street association, are already forecasting to finish setting up the street at dawn. “Today we stayed here all night”warns Gemma, who says that they have been working on this street theme since Christmas, after the commission has been rejuvenated by the change of residence of many neighbors after the pandemic.
Fear of overcrowding
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“We really wanted the day to come, but we are concerned about crowds“, Gemma continues. To try to avoid it, they have scheduled half the concerts compared to the previous year. “The problem is that we are the first street that you see when you leave the subway ..”, add other volunteers. This is a latent and constant concern in each of the streets. “Tourists scare me and that this is more of a theme park than a neighborhood party”, complain the young people of La Perla street. Same premonition in Tordera and Fraternitat. “Tourists and non-tourists: ethese people who come here to get drunk and do not respect the lives of others, especially at night“, Font also continues, from Verdi. “I am grateful at least that they have put a security guard and turn on the lights at night to prevent the street from being destroyed“Continues Camatx, who chooses to listen to the voice of experience. “Joaquín, when did the neighborhood party begin to change?”, he asks the octogenarian. “When people bought the 600: the neighbors left the neighborhood and came from outside“, exclaims the man, who says he has a bucket of water ready when the uncivic bother him because of the noise.
Miller takes it with resignation. “I told a neighbor who is here because she has to work in August: either go down and dance a little… or you won’t be able to sleep,” she says. The girl has ended up getting involved, even in the decoration. “What I want is for so much English to stop being spoken, and for us to be more from here, from the neighborhood… more familiar,” insists Joana, from La Perla. At three in the afternoon, no change in trend is coming. “Is this Gràcia party?”, they ask, at the subway exit.