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Updated: 28 August 2008

Blog paints grim picture of Lisbon

AN INTERNET blog that portrays a side of Lisbon that the city’s tourism board and Câmara would rather not be seen is being inundated with hits and comments. Lisboa SOS (http://www.lisboasos.blogspot.com/) takes an irreverent look at the city with heaps of images of run-down, dilapidated buildings, piles of rubbish, dirty streets, abandoned and wrecked cars, and overgrown green parks. The site, which depicts the depressing side of Lisbon, has been up and running for a month with the express aim of drawing the public’s attention to the city’s rundown public spaces.Under the banner ‘Lisbon SOS – Is this the kind of city you want to live in?’, the site aims at naming and shaming the side of the capital the authorities would rather the public didn’t see, in the hope that by drawing attention to it something will be done.With over 400 daily hits in six weeks, “we are surprised with the success of the site,” says one of its authors who ferociously defend their anonymity.“There are no hidden agendas here, this is a completely apolitical blog and shows things as they are,” said the anonymous author. The vast majority of the photographs published on the site have been taken by the authors themselves, who include university lecturers and a professional photographer. However, lots of visitors to the site are now sending in their own contributions with a simple mention of the place, time and date taken with space for the public to add their own comments. One photograph, taken at the entrance of Lisbon’s Santa Apolónia station, is particularly poignant and shows homeless tramps huddled up between refuse sacks beneath a wall with the inscription ‘Hotel Paludismo’ (Malaria-Infested Hotel). Portuguese journalist Pedro Rolo Duarte wrote an entry to the blog voted ‘comment of the week’ where he mentions “photographs, scores of photographs of a Lisbon where no one would choose to live: run-down, filthy, absurd, ridiculous, crawling, abandoned, poverty-stricken, and lost.”“Some of the photographs are really shocking – abandoned and uninhabited buildings, architectural monuments and statues falling to pieces, rubbish littering the pavements and roads, dirt and filth of the most unimaginable and unexpected nature.”Reactions from the authorities are not known, although graffiti on the statue of São Vicente in Largo das Portas Sol and on the walls of the Ministry of Public Works in Rua de São Mamede ao Caldas have been cleaned up since the blog appeared six weeks ago.