The abandoned Palmera Plaza Grand Hotel is emblematic of Jerez de la Frontera’s period of boom and bust in tourism and construction. Having opened its doors as a five-star, luxury hotel in the heart of the city centre, Palmera Plaza now festers in disrepair; attracting vandals, fire-bugs and the curious to explore its apocalyptic interior. Palmera Plaza is but one example of hundreds, thousands even, of abandoned buildings in the city’s historical centre, a centre struggling to compete with large commerce on the peripheries of town and a centre scarred by industrial abandon and nearly a decade of recession. In an old newspaper report on the abandoned hotel, an elderly Miguel laments: “And to think what this neighbourhood used to be.. Before there were bodegas everywhere and there was a lot of life. Now ninety percent of us are elderly and we’re afraid of getting involved in scuffles.. This is a ruin..”
Lives and Times 
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