Madrid's Broken Drinking Fountains Become Shimmering Waterfalls of Light

In many neighborhoods in Madrid, it's impossible to slake one's thirst from a public drinking fountain. Pedestrians may wander from one fountain to the next only to encounter a dysfunctional series of broken taps, missing plumbing and bone-dry pipes.

Some locals believe the government is intentionally neglecting these drinking fountains to punish people who use the agua in less-than-savory ways, such as washing their vehicles or cleaning out dirty drug needles. That's the theory promoted by Spanish arts collective luzinterruptus, anyway. The two anonymous artists behind the group claim that more than half of Madrid's public fountains are hopelessly broken, and that people who want a drink either must buy a bottle of water or trudge for 3 miles to locate a working tap.