The bevel formed by La Florida, Luis Montoto and Menéndez Pelayo streets is one of the most enigmatic geographies of the city. So much so that we could call it the Sevillian Bermuda Triangle, in memory of that mythical sea for ufologists of the 70s and 80s, when the para-sciences still had a certain intellectual prestige maintained by types of flowery shirts and Mayan medallions. What program of the old TVE would not have made the unforgettable doctor Jiménez del Oso with this Seville site in which archeologies, toponyms and shipwrecks of capitals converge? If ships and planes disappeared without a trace in the Bermuda Triangle, in this urban trine, located opposite the Puerta de Carmona, not a few projects and investments (including those of an award-winning Sevilla FC coach) have failed since More than fifteen years ago the last tenant of old rent came out to undertake the works of some posh apartments. So nobody knew anything about smart guys from the US who were selling bombastic packages of shitty mortgages to mutual funds around the world. Then came what we all know, the crash of 2008. Only an empty shell remained from the floors of Florida, waiting for better times.
From what can be seen, those best times have arrived, paradoxically in the middle of the pandemic, and the real estate project will finally be able to take flight. As a consolation in the face of so much delay, we have the extensive archaeological information that emerged from the excavations in a site that is irrefutable proof that every city is a palimpsest. Looking at old maps there, one can trace the old orchard of Espantaperros, a name eerily linked to the nearby Puerta de la Carne and the slaughterhouse; the Quinta Florida and its baths of flushed waters, or the urban transformations that brought with them the arrival of the railroad, the demolition of the walls and the birth of the rounds. But long before all these Parisian modernities, the Romans built secondary port facilities on this land linked to the main pier (at the Puerta de Jerez) by small-bellied barges that went up the Tagarete stream. Also there, they say, Julius Caesar entered the city, taking advantage of the Via Heráclea, of which there are still 40 meters that the new construction will respect. The Almohads, for their part, built the disappeared suburb of Benialofar, which would continue to be populated until the 15th century and would end up as a dunghill until nature outside the walls swallowed it up.
The Florida triangle is a portion of this Seville that does not stop building and destroying itself, as rich in history as it is in urban horrors. The new project is just one more milestone. People and buildings pass, coordinates remain.
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