For the love of a tower: the story of Malaga's "Monica's Tower"
To make amends with his beloved, a Spaniard wrote her name on a 96-meter pipe that became a city legend in Malaga, and despite everything, the couple is still together.
What are you willing to do for love? Die? Give away your soul? Or maybe climb a very tall tower to write your beloved's name there? José Carlos Selva probably thought about something like that when he realized that a bouquet of flowers was somehow not enough.
In 1993, after a fight with his girlfriend, Mónica Vallejo, 15-year-old José climbed a 96-meter chimney of a former factory in Malaga. This chimney can be seen from all over the city. And there, in large white letters, he wrote the name - Mónica.
Since then, the chimney has been called Mónica's Tower. It became an urban legend. And now, 30 years later, this couple lives in Tenerife, two thousand kilometers from Malaga. They got married and have three children. They look at the Red Mountain and remember Misericordia Beach, where it all began, comparing it to El Médano Beach, where they live now.
It all started with a small quarrel, as they themselves say. "I don't know if we broke up then, but I was very angry," Mónica recalls.
And José Carlos, who loved extreme sports, decided to make up in a spectacular way. "I wrote that name for four hours. I wanted to make it even bigger. It was such an act of love," he says.
When he finished, he went to Mónica. "And she looked at it as if I had just done something ordinary," they laugh now.
But for the whole city, it was something special. The chimney was renamed Mónica's Tower, and it became a symbol of Malaga.
But then the city authorities decided to restore the tower. "They even said that we were no longer together," Mónica recalls. But she wrote on social media that it was not true: "I am the same Mónica, and the author is my husband. And we are still married."
Since then, they have told this story to journalists and friends many times. And each time they were surprised how such a reckless act became their brightest memory.
In 2000, they decided to change their lives and moved to Tenerife. They wanted to become independent. Later they got married. "There (in Malaga) was work, but they paid less. And here, with one job, we earned as much as there with two," explains José Carlos.
They had three children on the islands: Yeray, Carlos Airam, and Yaiza. "This is paradise. We don't want to leave here," he says.
The tower was eventually restored, and the inscription was erased. In 2007, the Malaga City Council spent more than 500,000 euros on the restoration of the chimney. This caused a lot of controversy: should industrial heritage or folk memory be preserved? "I was very sorry," Mónica admits.
Once they went to Malaga with friends from the Canary Islands who did not believe in this story. To check if it was true, they pretended to be tourists and asked young people on the waterfront:
"Please tell me, what is the name of this tower on the beach?".
And everyone answered the same: Mónica's Tower.
It has been more than 30 years since José climbed the chimney. But the story of his love still lives in people's memory.