• Plans Excursion along the banks of the Manzanares

“Except for the beach, we honestly have it all

.

We'll fix it.

Let's see what I can think of.

This confession was made by the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, in a relaxed interview with Bertín Osborne last week on the program

My house is yours

.

At the moment, the Puerta del Sol Government does not work with any concrete plan so that the capital of Spain can come to have the most characteristic attribute of the coastal areas, despite its distance of more than 350 kilometers from the sea.

However, if in the event a project of these characteristics were finally carried out,

they would not be able to place the label of unpublished

.

In Madrid there was an artificial beach, in

a reservoir of the Manzanares River

at its confluence with the Fresno stream, next to Monte del Pardo, but a beach after all, with its sand, its parasols and its rowboats.

A bus line connected Puerta del Sol in 15 minutes with this public leisure complex, where bathers paid a peseta and a half to spend the day.

Madrid beach.EFEMUNDO

It was built during the Second Republic, was demolished in the Civil War and had a second life during the first years of the Franco regime until it fell

into disuse in the middle of the 20th century

.

In both cases, the person in charge of the works was the architect Manuel Muñoz Monasterio, who was also the author of the Santiago Bernabéu stadium and the Las Ventas bullring.

At kilometer seven of the La Coruña road there is still today the sign that indicates the

disconcerting detour to Madrid Beach

for those who do not know that it existed. The first thing that those who follow this indication come across is the Puerta de Hierro Sports Park. You have to walk about 20 minutes along the path next to the river towards the M-40 to find the first vestige of that time when the capital was as close as possible to a picture of the sea.

My, my! Here if there was a beach ”, you can read on an information panel installed in the area, which incidentally makes the group

The Refrescos look ugly

for popularizing a chorus that highlighted just the opposite. He also explains that the dam that was built to make this project a reality retained a shallow sheet of water that barely allowed bathers to get their knees wet.

That concrete structure with gates was not demolished until 2019 within the framework of a

"river restoration" plan for

the Manzanares passing through El Pardo launched by the Tajo Hydrographic Confederation for its environmental recovery and adaptation to climate change.

Among other actions, the conditions for the development of the river's native fauna have been improved.

Old facilities on the Playa de Madrid.Á.

N. WORLD

The only thing that remains of the old Madrid Beach are the buildings of the sports complex rebuilt after the Civil War that years later were used by a private club in operation until it went bankrupt in 2014. The enclosure today fenced is

owned by National Heritage

, where it is not They have specified to questions from this newspaper if they intend to give it any use.

In Ecologists in Action they state that the most appropriate solution would be to reach an agreement with the Community and the Madrid City Council for its

annexation to the adjoining Puerta de Hierro Sports Park

.

"The state of conservation is lamentable, it will need a considerable outlay, and the more time passes the worse," says Juan García, its spokesman.

In its transformation into a private club, the complex of the old Playa de Madrid came to have seven swimming pools, 10 tennis courts and four paddle tennis courts that were managed through a concession by the Cantoblanco Group, of the

businessman Arturo Fernández

, which entered into bankruptcy. in 2014. The complex has remained empty ever since, with shattered windows and multiple graffiti on the walls.

It has recently been protected by a fence that makes access difficult.

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