Even today if you go to a traditional cafe in Piraeus and meet older people, locals, who live for many decades in the largest port in the country, it is a given that you will hear many stories about Trump.
The infamous neighborhood that was sung and made into movies. Smell of hashish and market love. Stabbings. Tsaboukades. Illegal clubs and dice on the sidewalk.
Women who sold their bodies and unscrupulous peddlers who pulled a whip simply because you passed by them and dared to look at them. "The most arduous journey, for the unsuspecting", as Dionysis Charitopoulos wrote in the prologue of his book "The night Bukovi left", wanting to describe what was waiting for someone when he was walking "in the harsh Trump neighborhoods Drapetsona, Tambouria, Kaminia, Kokkinia, Perama and the wild Maniatika wedged between rocks and muddy waters ".
Or as Speranza Vrana wrote in her book "Trump", with a more "fairytale" writing: "Once upon a time in one of the most beautiful ports of the Mediterranean, Piraeus, there was a neighborhood, which was the pride of him and his τροπή shame ”.
Poverty but also inside. Misery but also dignity. In difficult years. It all stopped overnight. When the infamous "red lights" went out forever, at midnight on September 12, 1967, by decision of the junta.
The "golden days" of Trump
There is something oxymoronic in the history of this wild neighborhood. This oxymoron that perfectly describes it Speranza Vrana in her book of the same name. Trump began to "grow" gradually from 1937 onwards. What we know today (through stories, books, songs and movies) was formed from 1944 onwards, to grow in the mid-1950s and finally "extinguish" in 1967.
But let's start from the beginning. Before Trump there were the Vourla of Drapetsona. In 1852 the first "house" operated in that area. The need came after his exclusion Piraeus by the British and concerned as is easily understood the… "service" of the soldiers and crews of foreign fleets. In the following years, other "houses" began to open in the area, but the crew of the year came in 1937. The houses were closed by a decision of the Silk Dictatorship in order to fight… "prostitution".
This is a very hypocritical act because the very next day the women who worked there were transferred to other "houses", just a few kilometers to the east. In Trump. For the uninitiated it is the area in the western part of Terpsithea. Its center was considered Notara Street and "auxiliary roads" Filonos and Kolokotroni.
Its name, according to what has been passed over the years by word of mouth, came from a… large water pump that was placed in a cistern at the intersection of the current 2nd Division Avenue with the coastal one, from which its then steamers drew water. port!
Trump, then, especially after him World War II, began to fill with "red lights". It is indicative that according to official data in the mid-1950s the "houses" had about 500 registered women of all ages!
"John Bull", "Black Cat", "Liberty Bar", "Argentina", "Kit Kat", "Shanghai", "Mokambo", "Puerto Rico", "Milan" as well and "45 Giannides", were some of the nightclubs. Many hotels, such as "Lux", "Maxim", "Alexandria", "Paradise" and "Egypt". There were, however, three cinemas ("Fos", "Elysia" and "Olympic"), which screened films from morning until late at night on a daily basis with content unsuitable for minors.
"An American caught me…"
Murders. Wild beatings. Relentless gambling. But also unfulfilled loves, painful stories and dreams that were never fulfilled. This was everyday life in Trump.
In order to disrupt this daily life there was only one reason. Let the American fleet arrive at the port! "Welcome dollar", that is.
As many days as American warships remained in port, the Trump "Flooded" by sailors. This opportunity was not wasted. The price of market love (at best for the unsuspecting sailors) doubled from 27 drachmas to 55! In many cases, however, the price jumped to three or even four times.
Beyond that, however, there were the various tricks that women used to empty their wallets. The most common was the one used by the girls in the bars who made them "accidentally" pour their drinks in order to buy others and thus record dozens of stories according to which many sailors "touched" even their entire salary in bars, hotels and "houses"! And this is how the well-known expression came out: "I was caught by an American…"!
Understandably, however, working conditions for women were completely inhumane. They were forced to meet even with 50 men within 12 hours (10 in the morning and 10 in the evening). Those who did not obey the orders of the beggars were severely beaten so that next time they would not object.
The night the "red lights" went out
All this lasted until midnight on September 12, 1967. That day, at that time, the deadline that everyone in Trump had to leave the area expired. It's that dramatic moment that is so vividly captured at the end of the iconic film "the Red lights»Directed by Vassilis Georgiadis!
This film (produced in 1963), which even claimed an Oscar at the 36th awards ceremony in 1964, proved to be prophetic as at the end it describes something that would actually happen three years later.
Just five months after the imposition of the dictatorship, the junta Mayor of Piraeus, Aristides Skylitsis, decides to "clean up" Trump and orders the evacuation of "houses", bars and hotels.
The Security Council, a body that functioned on junta and consisted of the appointed prefect, prosecutor, President of the Court of First Instance, a representative of the military commander, the commander of the Ethics Department and the Director of Police, gave the brothels three days to close. The deadline expired at exactly midnight on September 12th.
The junta claimed that this was done in order to protect the "Greek Christian ideals". The truth, however, is that the "cleansing" of Trump was a requirement of foreign and local large shipping and shipping companies that settled in the area at that time.
In any case, that night, as prophetically depicted in Georgiadis' film, some women decided to change their lives, others followed their babysitters to other areas and new "houses" (where, probably,… protection was not needed of Greek Christian ideals) while dudes, gamblers and hashish drinkers found other hangouts in the center of Athens. Trump emptied and Bagianteras he sang: "Trump is now deserted, without young men, her streets are ruined, the little things are gone".