A group of unknown people raided some sewage and groundwater distribution facilities located on Barcelona's Paseo de Sant Joan in the early hours of Saturday morning in order to set up a bottle and, in the process, make a few spray paints in hand. The bill for the damage caused in this unusual incursion is around 3,000 euros. The materials necessary to erase these graffiti are more expensive than people think. In addition, the City Council will also have to repair any damage caused to access to these facilities. Fortunately, the people who sneaked in here did not touch the machinery of the equipment.
This assault occurred a few hours before around 70 people celebrated a birthday party by defacing the Jaume I and Passeig de Gràcia metro stations and a few passing convoys. Are subways becoming fashionable? This type of infrastructure has always aroused great interest in broad sections of the population, among very disparate people. When they hold the Open House here there are always tremendously long lines. In any case, it had been a few decades since anyone had come here.
Yesterday afternoon a few tube glasses, several empty beer cans, some bottles of spirits could still be seen in the place... Barcelona City Council will present the corresponding complaint shortly. Then you can finish putting this mess back together. Everything indicates that the bottle in question was not particularly crowded, rather a small gathering.
The truth is that the City Council's technicians are stunned. They don't understand that someone might want to force access to this infrastructure simply to have a few drinks and leave a few stains. This space is more reminiscent of a tasteless sewage treatment plant. It does not at all present those decadent airs that so attract place seekers. This center has no romanticism. A yellow light floods the entire room. Furthermore, to sneak in here it is not necessary to plan the perfect robbery, but it is not that simple either. Forcing access takes effort. The City Council will take advantage of the third to make these incursions even more difficult.
City Hall technicians do not remember a similar incursion in recent years. In reality, no one has entered these spaces for several decades now, since they housed the Clavagueram Museum. That museum was a post-Olympic work derived from the construction of the Paseo de Sant Joan collector.
Since its inauguration, in the mid-nineties, this facility had an eventful and short life. A flood in 2000 forced the temporary closure of facilities that documented the history of Barcelona's sewage system from Roman times to the present day and, in addition, offered visitors the opportunity to tour a section of the subsoil.
It was at that time when the museum began to suffer all kinds of evils: looting, hooliganism, occupation by homeless people... circumstances that added to a lukewarm reception from the citizens and complaints from neighbors about the insecurity it generated. Shortly after that provisional closure became permanent. Even so, when it had been closed for eight years, the City Council commissioned the drafting of a project for a reopening to which it even set a date (2010) but which in the end would never come to fruition.
