If you had to tell a friend how Buenos Aires is, what would you say to him? Would you tell him about summer or winter in the city? About downtown or the neighbourhoods? About the mate or the drinks during the happy hour?
Buenos Aires has no beach, nor mountain, nor ten centuries old cathedrals, nor ancient ruins from lost civilizations. But, whit that je ne sais quoi so hard to define and sung by the poets, Buenos Aires makes you in love.
The multiculturality is almost a registered trademark of Buenos Aires. Not many neighborhoods show this special feature as well as Villa Crespo, which celebrates its 120th birthday in the heart of the city. More than a century full of Yiddish tango, clothes and leathers, parks and billiards and goals by Atlanta, strudel and falafel and pizza orders with different accents. Twelve decades of tolerance.
In 1998, an artist of the neighbourhood of Barracas painted the front of his house in the Lanín street as if it was one of his paintings. Three years later, and at request of neighbours, the painted facades were 40. Now, from June the 3rd to December the 30th, the same artist performs a new urban intervention along the same street.
If the Legislative House of the City of Buenos Aires passes the law draft by the member of the Parliament, Marta Varela, the Callao avenue, along its twenty blocks, will be declared “Area de protección histórica” (APH: Area of historical protection).
The International Women’s Day –celebrated since the beginnings of the XX century– was born as a political date, a statement on the equality of sexes and a defence of women’s rights. With time, in many places the original meaning was lost and March the 8th became more of a romantic occasion.
In a city that was formed by a multitude of cultures, La Boca has been, for more than 150 years, one of the neighbourhoods with the biggest immigrant population. Italians settled in La Boca, specially Genovese or Xeneixe, as it is said in their own dialect and how La Boca inhabitants are still known.
Retiro neighbourhood was, for a long time, the north border of the small village Buenos Aires was until well advanced the XIX century. The low lands where now are the port and the railroads were covered by the Río de la Plata, and, when the water was high, the boats brought goods and travellers to the foot of the ravine that rises next to the current Avenida del Libertador.
In Buenos Aires culture, the neighbourhood of Boedo is connected to tango. Many “tangueros”–as lyrics writer Homero Manzi or pianist Osvaldo Pugliese–lived in this area or frequented its cafés.
Manzi was precisely the person who made such connection stronger when he mentioned Boedo’s main street corner in the opening verse of Sur, one of the most famous tangos:
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