chamberi

Few things are as rewarding as walking around the concrete jungle that is a city, and finding an oasis, a quiet corner, a patch of grass, trees. Madrid, as beautiful as it is, is still a concrete jungle, and the other day I discovered the Fundación Ortega-Marañón, one such oasis, literally around the corner from my mom’s house in the Chamberí neighborhood.

José Ortega y Gasset is considered Spain’s top 20^th C philosopher and Gregorio Marañón was a humanist doctor. Their respective nonprofits joined forces and merged in 2010. They are housed in an old palazzo with a beautiful garden and in what used to be the Residencia de Señoritas, a women’s college dorm which sits right behind the palazzo. They have done a beautiful job with the construction, preserving both the palazzo and the dorm.

Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia, y si no la salvo a ella no me salvo yo.

José Ortega y Gasset

During my visit, there was a great exhibition on the Revista de Occidente, Gasset’s literary magazine. With the title Claridad, claridad, it explained the trajectory and writers that participated in the magazine. It was very well done, and I was all alone. After my visit I was able to sit in the garden and read my book, what an oasis in the city.

Over the last few months, my friendly neighborhood kiosk closed and was eventually removed. This was heartbreaking.

Cities are living organisms that have evolved over centuries and have developed tools to make life easy, efficient, and enjoyable. The neighborhood kiosk plays (played?) a key part in this mechanism. Not only can you buy any newspaper, local, national, regional or international, you can get any magazine, books, any everyday necessity: chewing gum, tissues, postcards, water and sodas, cigarettes (come on, this is Europe), and all sorts of assorted knick knacks, but more importantly your friendly neighborhood kiosk owner knows everything about the area and every inhabitant in a mile radius!!

A funny anecdote: Hola magazine, the flagship and doyen of gossip magazines, has their offices in our block. In fact, Doña Mercedes, the owner, used to live next door (she died last year), and every Wednesday when the magazine came out she did not grab one from the pile in the office, she would go down to the kiosk and buy one from Yuste!

While I am overall positive about technology, I am not a reader of on-line newspapers. When you read a newspaper, you have to look at every page so you see what is going on internationally, nationally, locally, sports, culture, you even have to pass the obituaries. And if an article catches your eye, you read it. On-line newspapers do not give you that kind of thoroughness. You click on what catches your eye, but you are missing a lot of stuff you normally would not skip on a paper newspaper. Go ahead, call me old fashioned, but on any given day if you “read” an on-line newspaper and I read a paper one, I bet you I have seen -and likely read- more than you.

Our kiosk was inaugurated in 1965, the year I was born! and was run by the Yuste family since! They were friends. Over the last few years they complained about the loss of sales since fewer and fewer people bought newspapers -and I live in an old folks neighborhood! Stopping for a newspaper means having a bit of a chat, checking in, sharing a joke, commenting on the news, or whatever. Yuste once had me run to the bank to deposit a check for him!

At any rate, tired of not making ends meet and with aggravating health issues. The Yuste family finally closed their kiosk this Winter. A few weeks after closing a truck came and dismantled it. A few days later they paved over the site. Another victim of technology.

Paco runs the kiosk up the street in the Plaza de Chamberí, he seems like a nice fellow.