Time asked the stores how many stories time has

If we call them historic stores it is because they have stories to tell. There is an open book waiting for the Lisbon memories of its most emblematic trade. A book of homesickness, yes, but one that wants to be able to always tell new stories.

Exactly 60 years ago, on a June day, perhaps after the end of classes, Professor Ema Quintas Alves opened a book on the front page, picked up a pen and wrote in small print a dedication to Maria Adelaide. "For her sympathy, enthusiasm, good will to accompany the lessons, even the most annoying," says the message, which expresses the desire that Maria Adelaide "does not tarnish the insignia cradle, where she slept the first dreams, becoming a good student and a future high-level university student ".

That copy of "Little Portugal", the children's book that Raúl Brandão wrote with his wife, Maria Angelina, shortly before dying, walked in the twists of life, became wrinkled, became yellow and ended up in the number 50 on the Calçada do Combro in Lisbon.

It was there that Guilherme Nunes found it. In the midst of the hundreds of books that populate the New Eclectic Alfarrabista, that one jumped into view. He opened it, the dedication was intact, the full recipient's name. Here was a perfect opportunity, rare, to try to establish "the cross between the object, the store and the person," he explains. So it happened. More than half a century later, Maria Adelaide received again the book that Professor Ema dedicated to her.

"There is no real spring in countries where there are no swallows," Little Portugal tells us. There are no real cities in cities where there are no memories. Guilherme Nunes, Lucas Yu, António Silva and other colleagues from the advertising company "Leo Burnett2 launched the project Things That Matter. During the last three years they have been running through the traditional shops of the city, asking for interesting stories, trying to find the protagonists.

It was almost constant begging, they recognize smiling. "Much of the work was research, actual investigation," says António Silva, the agency's design director. "That was the hardest, but the best," adds Lucas Yu, art director. With the conviction that "there are many stories to tell", in the words of Guilherme Nunes, they sought and found Maria Adelaide, sought and found the granddaughter of Almada Negreiros, sought and found the daughter of Maria de Lurdes. Three people, three stores, three stories - and now three videos that are available on the site of the Circle of the Shops of Character and Tradition of Lisbon, a project of the Forum Citizenship Lx that was associated with the initiative.

Almada Negreiros ordered his glasses at André Ópticas, in Chiado, but he never went looking for them. Now they are in the hands of family. Maria de Lurdes won 250 grams of coffee from Casa Pereira da Conceição, downtown, with a poem: "If you want a scalding love / From the woman you love in vain / Give her the good coffee from the house / Pereira da Conceição" . After 58 years, the family discovered this stanza and drank the coffee.

"When you give something to someone, it has a very strong impact," says Lucas Yu. He and Guilherme are Brazilian, which explains part of the fascination with the historical stores of Lisbon. "In São Paulo, the oldest store is 20 years old," says Lucas. "As Brazil doesn't have this, when we find a place like this we want to do anything right away," says Guilherme Nunes. But that was not what gave the project a breather, because the Portuguese colleagues soon wanted to get involved. "It was born of people liking the city, of living it. The city has an essence, a very genuine history, "says Lucas.

A book that tells stories

The videos are released, and a book, a great book, is now ready to tell more stories from historic stores. It is a large volume with a blue and gold leather cover, on which was placed a thimble, a clock, coffee beans, a key, a button, a pair of glasses. There are grocery stores, pharmacies, tobacconists, dressmakers, goldsmiths, florists, bookshops, opticians, hardware and decorating houses, restaurants and bars in the 54 businesses that form part of the Circle of Character and Tradition Stores in Lisbon.

"It's a different book, innovative and a 'stone in the puddle', which can be an extraordinary promotional vehicle for the member stores of the Circle," says Paulo Ferrero, one of the leaders of this initiative of the Shops with History of the City Hall program). It is "a unique opportunity to climb another step in this slow, sometimes slow walk of the Circle in favor of safeguarding, enabling and promoting Lisbon's historical shops," says Ferrero.

The book contains the three stories already told, but most of the pages are blank, waiting for the contribution of the people of Lisbon. "The book is infinite because the stories are endless," explains Lucas. "It was great to make a second volume," admits Antonio. One doesn't just want the older ones to fill the space with nostalgia, before everyone creates new stories, permanently. "This is also for people to be curious and know the stores," says Antonio.

The book is going to circulate through the Circle stores, but it is also possible to leave testimonials on the website. In some time, the book will also be an object that tells a story - many stories. Even if not every story is happy. At first, there is an in memoriam to the fallen stores: "For this reason or that, Lisbon became poorer. We will try everything so that there is no further closure. "Without swallows there is no spring, without historical shops there are no stories.