It could be said that the neighbourhood of Poble-sec was the first city expansion, carried out before Ildefons Cerdà's Eixample district. People first came to live here in the middle of the 19th century beyond the old walled city. A stretch of the medieval wall attached to the Gothic shipyards, the Reials Drassanes, can still be seen today at the end of the Avinguda Paral·lel. Not far from here, the air-raid shelter, Refugi 307, illustrates how the civilian population lived during wartime.

This is a close-knit community in Barcelona with a long-standing tradition in the world of entertainment and theatre. It reached the height of its fame in the 1950s when the music hall artistes on the Paral·lel were the queens of irreverent humour. The three imposing chimneys towering above the buildings and theatres in the area have been preserved as a symbol of this Barcelona neighbourhood's industrial past. It was also the birthplace of such illustrious figures as the singer-songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat, hence his nickname "the boy from Poble-sec". The Paral·lel metro station connects with the funicular, which is a quick and convenient way of reaching the Parc de Montjuïc.