Marina Port Vell - a yacht harbor, and Moll de la Barceloneta - a huge open space on the other side of the fence with palm trees and noisy green parrots was an interesting place, where three worlds collide: the extreme luxury of yacht owners, a co-working office in the middle, and the street vendors on blankets just a few meters outside.
In 2017-2018 I worked a few months in the OneCoWork office which was had its own little world in itself. I walked through the park early mornings (9am considered early for the spanish people) towards the other end of the marina to the gates, and watched the yacht owners jump out their slip-ons to enter the decks bringing supplies or cleaning the white boats endlessly. Yacht people never really liked the co-workers as they were still outsiders and lower class even though paying multiple hundreds for a monthly place.
Outside the fence just in shouting distance a totally different world co-existed: the black market vendors of the migrant manteros, which is the word for the blankets they used. Manteros live in protected houses and refuge shelters and mean a complex problem for the city as usually have no papers or sell illegally, often subject to wild police raids. I witnessed raids like this multiple times myself: they pack all their cheap goods in a minute and quickly disappear in the nearby subway entrance.
I wish i could get in contact to capture a closer interview. OneCoWork closed in 2022.
Mantero preparing his goods for guiris (foreigners) and tourists walking in the middle through Moll de la Barceloneta. Big block of circular grids on the left is the co-working office, surrounded by the yachts of the marina inside the fence.
Street vendors in 2017 started a cooperative for an own brand named Top Manta to regulate and legalise their business. As the first attempt, they sticked their logo on the shoes imported from China, later they started to produce their first own line of trainers instead of cheap copies. Source: The Guardian
Anchored yacht from the outside balcony corridor of the co-working office in the middle of the marina
On the edge of three worlds: looking outside the coworking balcony, yachts in front of me, my friend having a break while working remotely. Everyday pain and hustle of the manteros world is outside just ten meters on my left, outside the fence. Yachts dancing by the waves calmly right in front of my feet.
Tourists strolling through the open space of Mall de la Barceloneta outside the fence, peeking into the secret life of the yacht marina jealously. Manteros packing out their goods on the carpets, ready to flee if the Guàrdia Urbana de Barcelona starts another mass raid.
I wonder a lot ever since: which side of the fence do we live?
