100 things: 100 photos - photo 35: mayfly

mayfly_78

100 things: 100 photos - photo 35

Oct 31, 2014 20:04

There was a time Athens was just full of these strange little three wheeler trucks. In the centre city and older neighbourhoods you still can still spot them on occasion even today. I took this picture in the oldest part of the working-class neighbourhood of Nea Smyrni, right where the worker's housing estates are. The natural habitats of these antiquated workman's vehicles.

Sometime in the 60s and 70s Greece actually tried having an automobile industry and making cars. They made a number of strange cheap cars and trucks, but none were more popular, and more long-lasting that the cheap three-wheeler trucks. These trucks proved to be perfect for all sorts of little transport jobs, but became mainly emblematic of the scrap collectors. People who made a living collecting scrap from the city streets that they could then sell onto scrap pounds and make a profit.

Most of these little trucks have proven to have very long lives since none have been made since the 80s. It will be a sad day when the last of them is retired, because they have become part of the inner city landscape in the way the old organ-grinders used to be. (I haven't seen an organ grinder in a couple of years, and I'm afraid the old one that used to go down Ermou has either died or retired.)

[Scrap Collectors]

photos, #100things, living in athens