The San Blas neighborhood, located to the east and northwest of the capital of Spain, hides a peculiar history, unfortunately, closely linked to heroin and various forms of crime. It was, in fact, an important nucleus of certain economies of illegality.
An informant born in 1967 tells us about his experience in the area from the late 70s to the early 90s. "At that time we children went to warm the seats," he remembers. "At the República de Panamá school there were 60 students and on top of that they gave us shit. A large number of the students hardly knew how to read or write. They reached the eighth grade and then left school and started working. We went to class with Panama (a famous delinquent in the neighborhood), who was called that because he went to our school, the República de Panamá, but we didn't know that. For us he was Cifuentes, although we had heard about a bad guy they called Panama. However, no "We knew it was the same guy."
He continues: "It was said that Panama sold drugs, but that it did not get involved, which aroused a lot of admiration. It was also said that it was very strong. At that time, everyone in San Blas was involved in the issue of martial arts. We, in order not to be left behind, got into wrestling. There was that culture of being strong, it would be 1985. Crime in Panama escapes us. I know it more from Ana Rosa Quintana than from the neighborhood."
"In San Blas there were other characters of lesser importance, but who were famous in the neighborhood for years. There was a certain M. B. He was crippled by a gunshot and lost an eye while trying to rob a butcher. The latter happened in a butcher shop in Torrejón. He was going to rob the butcher and he stabbed him in the eye. All the crime in the neighborhood was linked to the horse. There were people from our school who were oddballs and who ended up without teeth, decrepit. That was very bad. He extorted business owners in the neighborhood; let's say he charged them a revolutionary tax.
"It was said that he had the identity cards of many of them to threaten them. So they couldn't report him, those were legends that circulated. Curiously, in section F of San Blas the companies no longer insured the stores and the glass windows were made of wood. On the other hand, the pharmacies and tobacconists were like bunkers, they had bars, etc. And that's how we lived. Our parents were among the first to arrive in the neighborhood in 1962 or 63, when it was full of vacant lots. My parents were from Lavapiés, they lived in the back room of a shoe store on Amparo Street. For them, the house they were given in San Blas was like a palace. It had 47 square meters and two rooms.
You kick it on the ground
San Blas was never as demanding a neighborhood as Vallecas was, for example. One of my interviewees affirms that, in the 90s, a taxi driver even dropped him off in Ciudad Lineal to avoid entering the neighborhood. There were also those who claimed to live in the extension of Arturo Soria so as not to confess that they were from San Blas. In fact, the Las Rosas Shopping Center was also known as the O'Donnell extension. Many people in the neighborhood smoked their heroin cigarettes covered with their own jackets (to make a submarine and so that the smoke emanating from the drugs would not be lost). When they saw them, there were people who said: "Look, another one who is developing photos!", as one of my interviewees said: "The neighborhood was full of bullets!"
In relation to the famous town of Los Focos, where drug sales proliferated, he comments: "Suddenly in section H they realized that many houses were falling down because they were built on clay soils. Then, for a time there were the prefabricated houses of the town of Los Focos, which became a real ghetto once the people who lived in them were relocated, since they were left empty."
The secret of Los Focos
The town emerged in the late 70s and became the largest shanty town in the country. The name of the place comes from the enormous towers that illuminated the area. "I remember seeing Los Chichos enter the town with a green BMW," says one. "There, the gypsies sold sanitation, toilets, etc. The sanitation was sold in Los Focos long before drugs. People from the neighborhood say that the drugs were brought to San Blas by a gypsy from Extremadura. He was dedicated to tobacco smuggling, etc., living near Portugal, and discovered that what made money was drugs."
The Sala Argentina, on the other hand, was a traditional party hall located very close to the San Blas metro. Weddings were celebrated there and couples danced to traditional music, such as Paquito the chocolatier. At one point, it became a venue where hard rock and heavy metal concerts were held. "It became a nightclub for kids," says an informant. "I remember some ladies demonstrating at the door and shouting: 'Drugs are sold at this dance!'
The Argentine Room was also a cinema. "I remember that the usher would hit people who made noise with a stick to make them quiet," says one of my interviewees. "I remember going to see movies in continuous session, and there were people without shirts." When a quinqui movie was shown, the audience always applauded when the criminal got away with it or exposed the police, something that countless independent testimonies from the time mention. Let's say that the years of the Transition were eminently anti-authoritarian, which represented a reaction to decades of Franco's iron authority.
