Commercial galleries go through moments of uncertainty and, many, desolation. They promised this hairdresser that they would be the best in business, but his local is the only one who has managed to resist
20 mar 2023 . Updated at 2:13 p.m.
From the bustle to the echo, from the racking to the stillness. Between the beat of the star street and the catacombs that are now the galleys Santa Catalina, a man reads a sports newspaper on a headrest. It is Carlos Pardo, who is beginning to be accustomed to taking life easy and, above all, carrying silence with serenity. He set up his namesake hairdresser 36 years ago, when these commercial areas were called to be the last cry of the consumer world that was beginning to see the light. There were only thugs, the police came with a fixed shot; but then there was talk of the galleys of Calle Real[Centro Real] as if a new way of understanding trade was being born, and a strong commitment was also made to these, so I decided and here I am now.
Carlos understood that the future was promising when they explained to those interested in these premises that the galleries would also open towards San Andrés. In the end, he comments, this was left to die and I resist because I have a loyal clientele, but here there is nothing left, I am surrounded by stores. So, he lists the range of premises that were part of this commercial space: another hairdresser, a herbalist, a candy store, a boutique a perfume store, a store specializing in typewriters, or a grocery store. All these businesses began to grow hollyhocks due to the lack of public, and for this reason now the basements are a kind of storage room that leaves a desolate postcard.
Espacio Corua and Los Rosales: x-ray of some ghost shopping centers
Laura G. del Valle
The drift began to be irreversible at the end of the nineties, with the focus of commercial attention on other areas of the city. One of them, the Cuatro Caminos shopping center, where Carlos set out to set up his business. Opened in 1987, this hairdresser explains that he did not do it because he had to pay a lot for the community, and because those of us from the provinces did not realize all the traffic that El Corte Ingls generated around it. As things were, he gained a fixed portfolio of clients, among which were many employees of the surrounding banks. It may seem silly, but the merger of some entities and the closing of offices did me a lot of damage; but also to other businesses around.
As a survivor of these galleys, he does not consider leaving the ship. I am already sixty, at this point I stay as I am. I am aware that I do not have the cuo Barber shopwhich now has a lot of pull, but hey… I would only do a reform if my son continued with the premises, but not for me.