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However, the historical and documental dimensions don’t end there. There are many shots that would interest the anthropologist just as much as the historian, the sentimental chronicler as much as the rigourous documentalist: the franquist victory parades, the signs of “Desarrollismo”, the old trade and activities, ways of dressing and behaving, the festive world of the battle of the flowers, the presence of the mussel beds in the bay, the building of the Dique de Abrigo, that of the Club del Mar by its own members in a communal effort, the presence of now disappeared cinemas like the Coruña, the evidence of the occasional Chicago touch which led to the building of the Banco Pastor in the line of low glass galleries in Cantón, the vision of San Diego castle today knocked down, the old Lazareto beach, the disappearance of old markets like the one in Lugo square, the confirmation of gas deposits in the area of the Matadero , the long panoramic vision of the Granja, the historic river of Monelos overflowing and flooding the adjoining fields, the old Lavedra Avenue, the Cementerio Moro against the remoteness of the coast, the beautiful Tower of Hercules in the panoramic lonliness of that prodigious atlantic enclave, the evolution of the old squares like that of Pontevedra, Vigo, Ourense, María Pita…, the transformation of urban infrastructure…sporting events, historical episodes or social and political acts…All go to make up diverse and detailed information.
For all this perhaps, there is nobody who could avoid realizing, at some time on contemplating these images, a nostalgic ubi sunt? For the things and lost causes of “times gone by”. What happened to the old dry dock in Parrote? And its beach right in the heart of the Old city? And to the Iron dock? And the washing house in the Orzán? And the Bull Ring, although one wasn’t a fan of the piercing brash pasodoble of the “Fiesta Nacional” ?… Yes, friends François Villón and Manrique, what happened to the Circus Theatre? And! Ah! The Lino Pavillion, what happened?. And those ladies of long ago who with their hair dos, their dresses and fleeting perfumes danced, loved and were courted in the Leirón of the Sporting Club, or in the Kiosco of the Terraza,or in the Sociedad de Artesanos? And what did they do with the Riazor band stand? And the only gothic house that was in Parrote? And the old island of San Anton?….What ever happened to those times long ago?… What became of those cosmopolitan and civilized, slim hotels: the Palace- of which a paradigmatic almost Parisian painting of the painter Francisco Llorens is conserved-, the Francia Hotel, which later was Hotel España, or the Gran Hotel Continental? ¿And what of the Hotel Atlántico, that completed the triad of buildings that gave their signatures to the city in a unique and indefinable moment between modernism and colonialism, the health spa feeling of a venetian Lido and a luminous Mediterranean air on the one hand and, on the other, an oversees indian feeling? And what of those cafes, those cultured tertulian cafes of the universal, European, progressist La Coruña, where academics and Galician nationalists met,or the men from Alfar magazine and the vanguards, or the republican and liberal bourgeoisie?. What became of those cafés previous to bank inflation and one armed bandits: the Gran Café Bar, the Mezquita, the Galicia, the Unión, the Cafetería Kristal, the Cantón Bar?… A sign that these left a long sentimental trail is the present day attitudes of some Coruñians of the hostelry guild who know how to make the return journey to certain origins, after the emergence of tile and formica, in a parallel journey, the abandon of the uniforming small tile in the facades of the buildings. And so, it´s not surprising the recent civilized return to the cosier forms, more agreeable to privacy and conversation in some new cafés. And also the pertinent creation of tea rooms, a European and Britanic scarcity which swept the city, that would have pleased Drake´s ghost as much as raised the spirit of Sir John Moore or the impossible longings of Lady Stanhope, his inconsolable lover. Or the recent pubs of Celtic-Irish cast. Although this exists nowadays in a city totally dynamic with variety as much in cafeterias as in pubs, some of the latter being more heavy, more break-away or postmodern, in dynamic co-existence with those of a more traditional feeling.
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