Marta and Maria came down from Trinitat Vella this Saturday, surrounded by children, to enjoy the children’s games and numbers that, this Mercè, have taken over the Estació del Nord park. The journey from the periphery to the center of Barcelona It seemed like a regression to the past, to editions of yesteryear, when the festival of events was concentrated in the center of the city, disdaining the neighborhoods. “It’s very cool, but it would work better in the Trinitat park, as was done until last year. We miss him. “We want this in Trini!” the couple exclaimed, jokingly, although without joking in any way.
The celebrations have dispensed with two scenarios nestled in the outskirts that orbit around the Kisses, discovered with overwhelming success in recent years. They were also meritorious for revealing themselves capable of achieving what can well be labeled as a feat, that of transferring dozens of neighbors from the heart of the capital to the outskirts, always unknown to the general public.
The influx overflowed on the banks of the Besòs when it gathered shows relatives in 2018 and 2019. There were many who then decided to take a bathroom in the river, providing an unprecedented image for a long time – and reckless, perhaps – in waters convalescing from years of spills. The break forced by the covid It cut short the incipient love affair of the Mercè with the river park, which had the virtue of widening the festival to the limit where Barcelona merges with Saint Coloma de Gramenet. Overcome the chill of the pandemic, Besòs has not appeared in the festival brochures again. It didn’t appear last year, nor this year.
The Trinitat park has also fallen from the cartel, despite having an optimal connection in meter -a stop on the L1 ends there- and having established itself after not missing a single Mercè since it was incorporated in 2016. The garden that softens the interior of the road junction next to the Besòs provided a robust repertoire of circus, dance, theater and music. It was exhibited as the credential that the City Council intended to decongest the center to expand the celebrations to the farthest reaches of Barcelona.
neighborhood stupor
May Mercè pass by this time embarrassed to Trinitat Vella, says Manoli Vera, president of the neighborhood’s Neighborhood Association. “It seems very bad to us. It had not even been communicated to us. We didn’t find out in August, when the girl from the park bar called City Hall. “She had to make preparations but they told her that there would be no events this year,” says Vera.
The entity has sent a letter expressing dissatisfaction to the mayor, Jaume Collboni. The neighborhood group requests a meeting with the mayor and the Barcelona Institute of Culture (ICUB). “They tell us that it will not be done this year because cuts budgetary, but we don’t believe it. Because the same event has been brought to the Estació del Nord. “If it were due to a cut, the event is cancelled, it is not transferred,” Vera objects.
The neighborhood leader emphasizes that the choice of Trinitat Vella as the venue for the festival was not a mere amusementbut a way to vindicate the neighborhood and give encouragement to one of the Barcelonas weighed down by the poverty and the clichés. “It was about bringing a little piece of La Mercè and Barcelona, so that we were known within the city, not because it was a peripheral neighborhood with a bad reputation,” he emphasizes. Make ourselves known without that pressure nor that bad vibe, which would be removed little by little and bring a little of Barcelona here. The neighborhood was very proud. “Many neighbors have asked us why he hasn’t returned.”
Unfulfilled forecast
Nails plays on the slab that gives access to the grass that flanks the Besòs left the river without a party in 2022. The municipal executive promised that the Mercè would tread the bank again in 2023; However, the forecast has not been fulfilled.
“We have had a change of government and, perhaps, the plans were not made. We have arrived late”, states the president of the Bon Pastor Neighborhood Association, Paquita Delgado. She thinks that the celebrations could have reached the neighborhood this time, where there is only one last remnant of the Cheap Houses. In any case, Delgado avoids polemicizing.
“It was everyone’s mistake. We would have liked it, even more so now that we have almost everything finished and there are a few houses left to demolish… In the association we have been more focused on the latest apartment awards of the plan transformation from the neighborhood than at parties, but they have a importance “vital: the rest of Barcelona has to know about the recovery of Besòs and this park,” he postulates.
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For its part, the ICUB replies that “the Mercè stages are not fixed.” The answer It serves both the river park and the Trinitat. “Just because they have not been used this year does not mean that they will not return,” the entity points out. In the case of the river, he points out that the performances They relocated in 2022 to the Aqüeduduce park, in Meridian City. “They worked very well and that is why it is repeated there this year,” he says.
Delgado explains that at Bon Pastor “they get their act together” to recover La Mercè in 2024. He adds that the council has told them that he has the idea that the acts will land again in the river. A similar message has reached Trinitat Vella. “The ICUB events director tells me not to worry, that Mercè will still be here. But it’s not enough warranty. “We are going to follow it closely,” Vera promises.