Author: Timothy Price
I specialize in daily art, documentary and promotional photography. If you have a special event such as a musical production, play, concert, etc. or have a product or fashion that you need photographed, or you are a performer, musician and artist in need of promotional photos please email me or call.
Letters from Madrid – Public Restrooms
In the last letter we were visiting the parks and open space. While out on the streets in Madrid, public restrooms are not common, but you will find them. Many times we used the bathrooms in the bars and bought tapas or cup of coffee in appreciation of their services.
April 18, 1996
Public Restrooms
Restrooms in Spain are interesting. They are all modern, no holes in the floor you stand or squat over so far, just regular fixtures, largely manufactured by Roca. The light switches are invariably on the outside wall by the door as you go into the restroom. There are a few with interior light switches, but this seems to be the exception. In the bars and other semipublic restrooms the light switches, that are outside the door, are on timers. They switch on when you touch them and turn off automatically after a few minutes, often very few minutes. Furthermore, the floor plans to most restrooms in the bars are an entry with a sink and air blower hand dryer (paper towels are scarce in Madrid), and a room with a door and the toilet. Sometimes there is a urinal somewhere in between the sink and the toilet room. I have learned that when you walk into a restroom in a bar, you quickly familiarize yourself with the surroundings, location of fixtures, and which way the doors face and the type of handles on the doors and how they open. This is very important because for sure, the lights are going to go out before you are finished with what ever you a doing (even just washing your hands). Since all restrooms in bars are downstairs below street level, they are very dark when the lights go out. The first time the lights went out on me, I was quite surprised, since I had only been in the bathroom maybe 90 seconds. I had not paid much attention to the door handle or where things where, so there was much groping around trying to get through two doors so I could get the lights back on for another 90 seconds. I am much more aware of things in restrooms, but am still surprised when the lights go out. One interesting effect, however, is you never have to wait long for the bathroom even in the most crowded bar.
You find public restrooms spread very thin, and often closed. There will be a few on the busy round-a-bouts and in the parks, otherwise, Madrid is as bad as most cities in the US about public restrooms. Most public restrooms seem to be modernized versions of the old hole in the floor restrooms that Europe is so famous for. In the mens rooms, of these subterranean relief stations, there are urinals on the walls with a steel grate covering a drainage channel the runs the length of the wall. As you stand at the urinal and pee, you can watch it drain out of a hole in the wall into the drainage channel under the steel grate you are standing on. Every once in a while water is flushed through the urinals automatically, and then you get to watch a river running under your feet as you do your business. I guess the urinals keep you from peeing on the wall, your shoes and other peoples’ shoes, which I suppose could create a bit of tension among the men if someone where to spray someone else’s expensive, fashionable shoes.
At least the lights don’t go out on you in the public restrooms. There are always glass block lites in the ceiling letting daylight in, I assume they have other lights at night. There is always an attendant in these restrooms who keeps them clean an collects a paseta from you. Laurie and Tristan always have to pay. I have never been asked, and I have never seen any man pay. Laurie figures they are easier on the men because they know they will just go pee on the street otherwise (a lot of them do anyway. It is fairly common, especially after dark, to see guys stop and pee on the street).
Up next driving…
And the Wall Comes Tumbling Down
Banned for Life
It’s not the first time I’ve been banned for life because of my photographic endeavors, but yesterday’s ban was more surprising than when I was banned for life for photographing the Sandias from the edge of an Indian Pueblo. While the Pueblo’s police officer did not argue the fact that I was not on pueblo land, he had a problem with me photographing the Sandias, which he said is sacred property that belonged to the Pueblo. So he wrote me up for photographing the Sandias from the edge of the pueblo, and told me I was banned from the pueblo for life.
As anyone who has followed my blogs for awhile knows that I have been documenting the construction of the Imperial Building going up behind our office over the past year from the parking garage on 2nd Street. While city security staff has seen me on the garage taking photos of the construction many times over the past year, none of them have ever taken any notice, and said nothing more to me than “Hi!” when we were in earshot of each other. Yesterday, however, a security officer drove up and told me that I was not supposed to be on the parking structure, ordered me to leave, and told me to never come back. I asked her about people who parked in the garage, and she said anyone parking in the garage is supposed to walk to and from their cars, and are not allowed to walk anywhere else in the parking garage. Okay! I left, and shook the dust of my shoes as I walked out of the garage.
I understand that the City doesn’t want people wondering around in the parking garage breaking into cars, but I’m obviously not breaking into cars. Since the Imperial Building is almost done, it probably doesn’t really matter if I don’t do anymore photos of it from the parking garage, but I would like to finish the project from the same vantage points. I emailed Mayor Berry and asked if his office would give me a letter granting me access to the parking garage so I can finish documenting the Imperial Building to its completion.
I also went back through my photo archives and created a new animated gif of the construction over the past year. I had missed a couple of weeks of progress, which I overlooked trying to get the first gif completed so I could post the gif on the one year anniversary of ground breaking on the project. So the new animated gif is more complete and all the images fit better than the first animated gif. You can see the new gif on the post from January 13, 2016 at https://photoofthedayetc.wordpress.com/2016/01/13/the-ends-in-sight-a-year-after-a-ground-breaking-experience/
The Challenger
Castor canadensis
You can read more about what the Bestiary† from the middle of the 13th Century had to say about beavers at http://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2016/1/castor-canadensis
†Image from Bestiary MS Bodley 764. Page 43. “Bestiary being an English version of the Bodleian Library, Oxford M.S. Bodley 764 with all the original miniatures reproduced in Facsimile. Translated and introduced by Richard Barber. The Boydell Press. Woodrifge. 1999”
CompuSpunk
See more photos of Spunk, Sasha and Najar at http://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2016/1/compuspunk
Hoodie on a Heater Vent
More photos at http://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2016/1/hoodie-on-a-heater-vent
A Fence for Julie
A Fence, a rose, Sasha http://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2016/1/a-fence-for-julie
Letters from Madrid – Parks and Open Space
While I found the round abouts to be an interesting part of the urban design in the last post, I found the prostitutes in the open space to be even more curious as part of my first impressions of Madrid.
April 18, 1996
Parks and Open Space
Madrid is really great about parks, playgrounds and open space in among the dense urban environment. Almost every plaza has a park with benches and a playground. The Spanish haven’t decided that swings, slides and monkey bars are unimaginative, or too dangerous. They have play equipment that was outlawed in the States years ago. The kids love the play equipment and the playgrounds. The playgrounds are always full of kids playing, families hanging out and people walking dogs basically all day. You see more families starting about 6:00 pm on until 10:00 pm or later. During the day you see groups of kids on recess, adults swinging and walking their dogs, and moms with younger kids in the playgrounds. People tend to really use public areas. You do a lot of living and playing in the city streets, parks and cafe bars, as opposed to sitting at home and watching television (although, I think a lot of people sit at home and watch TV also).
The Parque de Retiro is on the eastern side of the centro. This is a large park with all kinds of stuff: trees, well kept gardens, pathways for walking and running, streams, fountains, sculpture, lakes, a crystal palace, birds, ducks, swans, geese, extremely tame squirrels, cafe bars and sports facilities. You can rent boats to row on the larger lake and there are paved streets used for skating, cycling, and roller blading. We spend quite a bit of time in Retiro. It is a very nice park to hang out and relax in. I walk 10 kilometers every morning, and the majority of the walk is in Retiro.
Another beautiful park is Parque de Oeste. Oeste is 3 kms. west of us on the edge of the Rio Manzanares valley. Oeste is much more wild than Retiro, It has relatively steep slopes and many hills covered with grass, a large variety of trees and wild shrubs. There are pathways winding up, down and over the hills, and monuments dispersed among the foliage. You feel like you are in the mountains. There are information placards the describe many of the trees and bushes, their history, usage, and origins.
Just across the river, west of the centro, is a huge open space called Casa de Campo. This is were you train if you ride a road bike, plus it also has really good mountain bike trails. The area is very hilly and covered with pine trees. There is a long (2.5 kms) aerial tram (Teleferico) that runs from Parque de Osete on the east side of the river to about a third the way into Casa de Campo. The Teleferico is reasonably priced and really fun to ride. It gives you a great view of Madrid, the Guadarama mountains, and Casa de Campo. From the looks of the place, it is set up to handle a lot of people picnicking, camping, playing, hiking, biking and going to the zoo and the amusement park located along the south side of the park. We walked up to the zoo once, but it cost 1500 ptas per person to go in. We said no thanks; however, we have been assured by the natives that the zoo/aquarium are well worth the price. There are playgrounds, soccer fields, trails, picnic tables, campsites, and a lot of trash cans. I’ll bet the park will have a million or so people at any given time in the summer. We’ll have to see.
The one curious thing we noticed about Casa de Campo as we were walking from the eastern end of the park up to the zoo, were prostitutes on every intersection and along the roadways in that end of the park. I started referring to them as PnP (putas in the park). The first one I noticed was an attractive Spanish woman standing along the road under her umbrella (it was a rainy day). As we headed west, the number of prostitutes increased and they were primarily black women (African). We were in the park during siesta, so I’m guessing that men take their siesta time to go out to Casa de Campo to hire a hooker, go off in the bushes, or park in a remote area, have some whoopee, and then go back to work. It is really strange to see prostitutes advertising themselves in a wooded open space. The only other place we have seen prostitutes, on a regular basis in Madrid, is at Gran Via and Calle Hortaleza. We joke about Gran Via at Hortaleza not being a good spot for a rendezvous. I use to think that tourists who can’t or don’t read local papers were the main client’s of these horrid looking, unhealthy, obviously drugged out street creatures; however, I have seen several men who were older, not very good looking and often handicapped (with a lame arm or leg) making deals with these ladies. I have to pass by there quite often to get to may guitar lessons and into the centro, and you can’t help noticing what’s going on. Prostitution is apparently legal here. When I was looking for apartments in the classified section of the paper, the largest section in the classified’s was for prostitutes of all types: male, female, young, old, all nationalities. They even had classified’s advertising non-professional hookers.
Retiro and Casa de Campo are the two main parks we have been to. The map shows many other large parks, hundreds of small parks, and a large area to the northwest that looks like the equivalent to a national forest in the U.S. We are scouting out horse lessons for Tristan, and that will take us to mountains around Madrid.
Another interesting space in Madrid is the Atocha train station. There is an indoor rain forest at the train station where you can go and hang out. It is very pleasant, the air is clean, and the trees and plants are large, thick and healthy. There are benches all over the area were you can sit and read, think or just watch people. There is a lily pond with gold fish and turtles that keeps Tristan entertained. There is a cafe bar, a few shops, travel agencies, and a car dealer in the rain forest. The car dealer only has two cars on display at any time inside and there are usually two to four very attractive sales ladies wearing short yellow skirts with matching blazers, black tights, and white blouses showing off the cars and answering questions. When we are making calls from the phone place off Calle de Atocha, or doing other business along Calle de Atocha or Paseo del Prado, we will walk over and use the restrooms in the train station and sit in the rain forest and relax a bit.
Next public restrooms…
Off Center & Not Even 