The barrio of La Boca lies in the southeastern part of the
city, beyond the reaches of the Subte system. That wasn’t a problem, though, thanks to
Uber. The trip from Elisa’s apartment
took about 30 minutes.
I must admit that my first impression of La Boca was a
shock. When our Uber driver dropped us
off at El Caminito, the pedestrian street where our tour began, I thought that
I’d walked into a Disney theme park. The garishly painted houses, the souvenir stands, and the
cartoon-like figures popping out of windows all screamed “tourist trap.”
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| My first view of El Caminito (notice Pope Francis in the window) |
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| On El Caminito |
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| El Caminito, before the crowds arrived |
Fortunately, our guide was able to put the noise and
commotion of El Caminito into a historical context. The barrio of La Bocca is the birthplace of
the city of Buenos Aires. La Boca, which
means “the mouth” in Spanish, got its name because it’s located at the mouth of
the Matanza-Riachuelo River. It is here
that Pedro de Mendoza, a Spanish aristocrat, established the first permanent
settlement in 1536. During the 17th
and 18th centuries, the city developed into a major center for slave
trade and silver trade. The revenue from
taxes on exports and imports made Buenos Aires a very wealthy city. La Boca became remained the chief port of
Buenos Aires until quite recently, when the Puerto Madero area to the north was
developed.
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| The port of La Boca |
Immigration played an important part in La Boca’s
history. Immigrants from the city of
Genoa began arriving in the 1830s and settled in the port area, where many
found jobs in the barrio’s shipyards. For
housing, the immigrants used leftover materials from the shipyards – scrap
metal and marine paint – to build conventillos,
shack-like tenement buildings that they painted in bold colors. In the decades from 1880 to 1920, Argentina
experienced a massive wave of immigration, second only to immigration through New
York’s Ellis Island. La Boca received
about 6.6 million people. Roughly sixty
percent of this wave of immigrants came from Italy, but there were also large
numbers of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe as well as immigrants from
Greece, Ireland, Spain, France and England.
Most of the new arrivals remained in La Boca, where they crowded into
the conventillos.
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| Tenement buildings |
With overcrowding and unsanitary conditions, disease spread
rapidly and an epidemic of yellow fever broke out in La Boca in 1871. Wealthier residents departed for other parts
of the city, La Boca was placed under quarantine, and the barrio went into a
decline for a number of years. A labor
strike in 1882 led to the declaration of the Republic of La Boca. The republic lasted a mere 72 hours. However, a fierce spirit of independence and
a blue-collar grittiness continue to characterize La Boca to this day.
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| Street art at a La Boca playground |
Tourists generally avoided the barrio in the early 20th
century. However, in the 1950s,
Argentine artist Benito Quinquela Martin, who had grown up in La Boca,
spearheaded a major revitalization effort for El Caminito and the surrounding
area. He enlisted local residents to
repaint their houses in the bright colors used in the previous century. Restaurants and bars moved in, artists set up
shop, and this part of La Boca became a magnet for tourists. Soon afterwards, city officials declared El
Caminito an open-air museum.
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| Paintings on an old building near the railroad tracks |
Today, La Boca is especially known for its nightlife, including
tango shows (more about tango in my next post!) but I was cautioned by several
people not to wander the streets of the barrio after dark. In fact, parts of La Boca are considered so
rough that they are best avoided even during daylight hours.
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| Street art in La Boca |
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| Street art in La Boca |
Street art abounds in the area near El Caminito. We saw scenes related to soccer stars, Aztec
figures, and local fire fighters and policemen.
Much of the street art makes a political statement. For example, there is a large mural depicting
the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo. This is
a group of women whose children, young activists with leftist beliefs,
“disappeared” during the repressive military dictatorship in the 1970s and
80s. Although their bodies have never
been found, these young people are presumed murdered. For decades, the mothers have gathered in the
Plaza de Mayo every Thursday to demand information from the government about
the fate of their children (and grandchildren, as children born to female
prisoners were allegedly given away for adoption to army officers).
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| A very large mural in La Boca |
Soccer (or futbol,
as it’s called in Argentina) plays a big role in the life of La Boca. Thousands
of fans regularly flock to the barrio and pack into La Bombonera stadium to see
the Boca Juniors play. While Elisa and I
were walking around La Boca, we saw many wearing the blue and gold colors of
the team. According to our guide, the
game is a religion in Buenos Aires. The
two main teams, the Boca Juniors and their bitter rivals, the River Plate team,
have devoted fans. Loyalty lasts a
lifetime.
A few hours of the circus-like atmosphere of La Boca was
enough for Elisa and me. We had a quick al
fresco lunch at a parrilla (grilled
chicken for me – I still wasn’t quite ready for a plateful of beef) and then
worked our way through the crowds of tourists, ignoring the tango dancers
offering to pose, until we reached a relatively quiet street where we could wait
for an Uber ride back to Palermo.
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| An al fresco lunch with Elisa in La Boca |
The neighborhood of San Telmo offered a completely different
experience. One Monday morning near the
end of my time in Buenos Aires, I took the Subte into the Plaza de Mayo in the
city center and started walking south. As
I neared the broad, tree-lined Plaza Dorrengo in the heart of San Telmo, I
congratulated myself on being able to find my way around the city without
losing my sense of direction. My inner
GPS is usually pretty reliable, but when I first arrived in Buenos Aires, I
felt so disoriented because I kept expecting to see the sun in the southern
sky. Of course, that’s only true in the
northern hemisphere. In Argentina, the
sun crosses the northern sky and it took me a while to internalize that
knowledge.
The quiet of San Telmo struck me immediately – not many cars,
not many people walking around, and even some of the shops were shuttered. I guess the neighborhood was recovering from
the weekend. Every Sunday, the San Telmo
Feria (fair) fills the Plaza Dorrengo and spills over into the surrounding
streets. In fact, Defensa, the main
north-south street leading to the plaza, becomes a pedestrian zone, with
vendors set up along both sides of the street.
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| At the Plaza Dorrego in San Telmo |
In contrast to my Palermo neighborhood, San Telmo lacks tall
modern buildings. It’s smaller in scale,
well worn around the edges, a bit quirky, and utterly charming in its own very
unpretentious way. Compared to La Boca,
it had a genuine, authentic feel, somewhat reminiscent of certain of gentrifying
sections of Brooklyn.
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| A street corner in San Telmo |
San Telmo is known as a shopping destination, especially for
antiques. I noticed several storefronts
displaying china, glassware, furniture, jewelry, etc. I wasn’t interested in acquiring anything for
my house, but I wanted to come home with at least one small souvenir from my
trip. I found what I was looking for in
a shop that specialized in rodocrosita. Called rhodochrosite in English, this
beautiful stone, with its bands of rosy red and pink, is considered the
national gemstone of Argentina.
It wasn’t hard to find earrings that I liked. But, as so often is the case in Argentina, making
the purchase wasn’t simple. My supply of
pesos was dwindling, and I was hoping to use a credit card. Argentina is still very much a cash based
economy, so I had gotten into the habit of asking, whenever I entered a shop or
restaurant, if they accepted credit cards. Of course, businesses prefer cash payments,
and many offer a discount if you use effectivo
(cash). However, the owner of the
jewelry store assured me that he would take my credit card. After ten minutes and two unsuccessful
attempts to process the payment (he couldn’t connect), I ended up counting out
pesos to complete my purchase. Now I’d
have to make sure I found a restaurant that accepted credit cards if I wanted
to eat lunch.
Before I turned back up to the city center, I made sure to
stop in to MACBA. This small privately
owned museum is devoted to geometric abstract art, i.e. Elliott’s painting
style. Since I had learned of the
museums’ existence before I left home, I already knew from their website that
the museum owned works by several of Elliott’s artist friends and
colleagues. Since his work would fit
right in to their collection, I plan to contact the museum director to see if
MACBA would be interested in acquiring one of his paintings. I’d even offer to
deliver it in person. J
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| MACBA, the museum of geometric abstract art |
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| Mercado San Telmo |
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| Mercado San Telmo |
Heading back from the museum, I stumbled across the indoor San
Telmo Mercado with its produce stands and lunch counters. Although my stomach was growling and I was
tempted to stop, I was afraid I didn’t have enough cash on hand. Instead, I continued on my way until I came
across a cozy vegetarian café with a credit card sign in the window. Gingery carrot soup, lentil salad, and
eggplant milanesa satisfied my
ravenous appetite. And their credit card
machine worked!
San Telmo had turned out to be an unexpected delight. Little did I know, at the time of my initial
visit, that I’d be back in the neighborhood again a few days later. But that’s a story for my next post, Buenos
Aires after Dark.
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