The game afternoons of the students of the San Cristóbal public school, are in danger. The board of the community of San Cristóbal, known as the Parque Móvil, has taken the Madrid City Council to court this Tuesday with the intention that, isolated from Bravo Murillo street by a fence with two entrances, which not only serves of a school playground, but for decades it has also been a meeting place for families and students after classes. Although the square is declared a green area and its use is public, some of the residents of the community are opposed to sharing the space with the children who play there in the afternoons from Monday to Friday.
When the bell rings around four in the afternoon, about twenty parents wait for their children at the doors of San Cristóbal, on one side of the square. Instead of going home, to the library or to another park, the adults sit on the benches or on the steps that dominate the space while the little ones run tirelessly from one side to the other. This is a special square for many reasons, among them, because to avoid confrontations with neighbors, certain rules have been agreed upon, which can be read on the posters posted on the walls throughout the area. The children know that they can only use foam balls, that they do not make noise when bouncing, that bicycles are prohibited and that there are four seats at the beginning of the square exclusively for older people. Everything is strictly followed, but for certain neighbors it is not enough.
The conflict exists because the community has maintained the irrigation and care of the square since the nineties of the last century, but the City Council considers it as part of its public green areas. The objective of the lawsuit is for the council to recognize the private ownership of this space, surrounded by several neighborhood buildings, the church, a sports center and several small businesses. Part of the residents of the community have already tried to veto the passage to the esplanade by their own means on other occasions, without success, but now they have taken the judicial route in the hope of achieving it. Más Madrid already announced that it would present an emergency motion in the plenary session of the City Council on Thursday so that it can take ownership of the square and the dispute over its use can be settled.
“It’s a shame that, because we want to take a nap, they want to take this park away from us,” says Samuel Gómez, who has a son in third grade, while talking with other fathers and mothers. Everyone agrees that the privatization of the square would mean the end of the school – which only has a small patio within its facilities – because the students would have no place to do outdoor activities such as physical education or play at recess. The AMPA of San Cristóbal says that the school is co-owner of the plaza, because it is also part of the community, so they hope that outings during school hours would not be affected, but those that occur after school would be affected.
In addition to the families who would lose this valuable space, of which they say there is no other in all of Chamberí, the two businesses inside the esplanade would practically die with privatization. The parents also think about what will become of Carmen Rodríguez. “The children are the ones who give life to my place, the ones who help me live. I will have to close, but I feel very happy here,” Rodríguez laments. A father who is leaving the store stops and says: “That’s right, you’re not wrong.”
The AMPA board assures that the City Council has confirmed its intention to continue supporting the public use of the square, in which many of the 3,000 residents of the community have also played since it was founded nearly 80 years ago. Carolina Cazo-López today has two children, one in third grade and the other in sixth grade, at school, but she remembers how more than 30 years ago she also ran through this place, which she calls “a social center of Chamberí.” “This is one of the school’s differential points, it is amazing that they want to take it away,” he comments.
Pablo Gutiérrez began to be part of San Cristóbal this year, when his daughter entered first grade, but he already feels part of that school community that is largely created in the square. The choice of this school was not a coincidence: they told him that here the children played spinning tops after class and that they ran freely without danger thanks to the fence of the park. He says that he is impressed by how the older children meet with the younger ones and that there are no screens anywhere. He calls this “luxury in Madrid”.
