In theory, this street will be a street again.
In practice, there are few roads in Madrid that exemplify such a botch job so well.
Everything has been upside down since the end of September due to some works.
There are yellow, blue, red, white fences, in the middle.
Machines, cement, paving stones, gigantic red cylinders, in the middle.
Clods, mounds, debris.
Bricklayers with yellow vests from one side to the other.
More fences.
Pedestrians who stumble every two by three.
Glovo delivery men meandering potholes.
Restaurant customers queuing over a quagmire.
Beer delivery men who, since they can't get in, park the trucks in the closest surroundings and cut off traffic, and they get out of the cab very quickly, muttering, fed up.
Immediately,
a couple of local police officers appear on a motorcycle to warn them to move now or they will be fined.
Another driver of a car decides to park on the road because... what does it matter?
A trader says that mudslides are generated when it rains.
A neighbor who walks slowly with a cane watches the scene.
A father in his thirties smiles as his baby carriage zigzags through obstacles as if it were a test of
Grand Prix.
Welcome to a morning in Ponzano.
Such is the botch work on Carrer de Ponzano, that even a long sidewalk of a section of the road has been raised, it has been made new, it has been done badly, it has been completely raised again and, in theory, it is already well laid .
"Now they have problems with the pedestrian crossing," explains a concierge over her door.
"They don't know whether to move it five meters to the right or not, that's why it's standing here."
There are zebra crossings in Madrid that are true hieroglyphics.
Four companies are involved in the Ponzano reform.
They carry out a work of 873,677.95 euros that affects just over 70 street numbers.
One of the companies denounces in EL PAÍS a non-payment of another.
And everything happens in the epicenter of Madrid's hackneyed freedom, on a road of just over 1,000 meters that houses more than 70 bars,
where there was a time when the residents of the street hung Spanish flags on their balconies and now, little by little, they are mutating into posters against the noise generated by the customers from the terraces of the restaurants below.
These are not good times for the residents of Ponzano.
Nobody said that it was easy to live in the paradise of freedom.
Ponzano is located in the Chamberí district, one of the wealthiest areas of the Spanish capital.
Here there are six neighborhoods with a total of 150,000 residents.
There are no rental apartments for less than 1,000 euros.
A simple 17-meter bass – the cheapest apartment that could be found in Idealista this Wednesday and that, in theory, is offered to live in – is sold for 160,000.
The most common income exceeds 26,000 euros, according to the INE.
Chamberí is a true conservative stronghold.
So much so that its most illustrious neighbor is President Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
Ayuso garnered more than 65% of the votes in these corners in the last elections a little over a year ago.
The works of the street of Ponzano.
alvaro garcia
But —there are always buts in the PP—, all the spotlights now point to a dark-haired man, with white curls and gel, wearing American jackets, jeans and classic shoes: Javier Ramírez, popular councilor and district president since 2019. From the most conservative wing of the party, exercises with an iron fist in plenary sessions in the neighborhood.
Famous for spending more than 90,000 euros of public money on Spanish flags, Ramírez often visits a couple of bars in Ponzano, according to several hoteliers and residents of the area.
No one forgets that he is the councilor who granted the most permits for new terraces during the pandemic, as reported by
eldiario.es
in March.
Throwing a cane in Madrid became a political issue in those days.
The hospitality industry is one of the sectors that has generated the most jobs in Spain in recent years.
In the capital there are about 270,000 families who live thanks to this business, which contributes 4.6% of the GDP to the city.
In short, there were many votes at stake in the neighborhood.
A waiter from Ponzano, who comes to work from the most humble areas of Madrid, was a potential vote for a family from Vallecas or Usera.
The PP opened the bars and restaurants when the rest of the communities applied the lock.
The emergence of the terraces during the months of the de-escalation was of such a caliber that it placed the bars of Ponzano at the capital's top of leisure, as a kind of pike in Flanders for the hospitality sector.
The bars that did not have terraces were suddenly given the possibility of having a very large one in the parking space in front of them.
Goodbye to much of the residents' cars.
Welcome tables, chairs, railings, customers.
See you always pleasant rest for the neighbors.
In Ponzano ―especially since the last four years― if a place becomes free, it becomes a bar, restaurant or pub for drinks in a matter of days.
A year and a half after the great expansion of the terraces, the weariness of the neighbors is palpable in most of the portals.
Most openly say that they can't take it anymore, that if they can, they leave on weekends so as not to put up with the street noise of the reeds.
Some have even put their apartment up for sale.
Now, to make matters worse, the street is turned upside down at the initiative of councilor Ramírez himself, who has budgeted a comprehensive reform of the road at more than 800,000 euros.
He will remove a row of parking lots for residents to widen the sidewalks a little more.
The restaurateurs consulted believe that they will be able to place their terraces there.
The neighbors trust that they will all be suppressed.
Fernando Ramos, watchmaker, in Ponzano street.
alvaro garcia
A work that nobody asked for
Ramírez's work was not even contemplated by the Department of Works, also managed by the PP.
"Sometimes the districts ask to do some," explains a spokesperson for the area.
A councilor from the government team tells by phone that Ramírez "sold" them months ago this work as "very necessary" for the neighborhood during a morning meeting in a room of the Cibeles palace.
"He said that it had to be done yes or yes for a matter of accessibility," says this mayor.
"But come on, surely behind this is something to favor some of
his
friends ."
Other voices of the PP acknowledge some concern about this issue.
"No.
Nobody has asked for this work,” says Pilar Rodríguez, 71, and president of the El Organillo Neighborhood Association, from the neighborhood itself.
"It is a reform by and for the bars."
Fernando Ramos, 58, is a third-generation watchmaker at portal four on the street: "This is deadly for businesses."
The workers at the López butcher shop don't mess around with stories either: “All this work is a lie.
In my life I have seen something similar.
They said it would last three weeks and it's already been four months."
And even an employee of the Repsol gas station, located in the middle of the road, points out: “It is disastrous in capital letters.
If people fall every two by three when they walk!
The works of the street of Ponzano.
alvaro garcia
The administrative gear of the contracting of the work also has its crumb.
The reform has been divided into two sections, which were awarded to a company, which in turn subcontracted two others, one of which again subcontracted its tasks, in such a way that where a single company should have intervened, four now operate and no all well avenidas, with accusations of non-payment in between.
The scandal is of such magnitude that on Tuesday there was no one working on the first section, to the surprise of the neighbors and waiters.
Íñigo García, 70 years old, and with an orange mustache from the addiction to cigarettes, was conversing at the door with Fide Verdugo, 79. Fide is quite an institution in Ponzano.
Owner of two breweries and seafood restaurants that bear his name, he says that the works always hurt at first, but that these, in particular, are very necessary for the street.
“The problem here is not the restaurants, but the cocktail bars.
Schedules are established that are then not met.
People drink and…”.
Garcia, the neighbor with the orange mustache, interrupts the conversation after taking a long puff:
"And people freak out."
A few meters away, a construction worker dressed in white overalls full of stains of colored paint wanders through the cordoned-off area, trying to kill time from one place to another.
He says that last Saturday he had the order to put up the fences correctly because a boss told him that Mayor Almeida was planning to visit the area.
"Is there much left to finish the work?"
"Well, almost everything.
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