When in 2011 the Municipal Council of the City of Thessaloniki decided that the city’s brothels must move to non-residential land of previous “industrial and semi-industrial use”, it also laid the ground for the new Canal D’Amour.
Bel Ami
Bel Ami, a luxury brothel, with jacuzzis embedded, situated in the west outskirt of the city, the so-called Beh-tsinari area, was pretty close to the new designated area. But not close enough. With the ensuing closure of the enterprise, the monthly rent waiting to be paid and the economic crisis leaving no room to cover superfluous costs, the investor decided to quit.
Mortgaged at the bank and without the monthly income flowing from the investor, the property started accumulating debts. But it didn’t remain empty. Nikos Sapatoris, one of the brothers who owned the property, returned there. He not only filled the space with his physical presence, but also with the objects that he obsessively collected. As his nephew Xristos says, “Nikos had some psychic problems and had the tendency to collect whatever object he found.”
