Song ”Caminito”, by Carlos Gardel.
One thing I admire in Buenos Aires is its ability to renew areas that were destroyed, abandoned, dirty or ugly transforming them into places of high tourist appeal. This happened with Puerto Madero and with a small street in the neighborhood of La Boca called Caminito.
Caminito street is known for its colorful buildings and it is one of the most famous postcards of Buenos Aires. It is located only 400m away from the stadium of Club Atlético Boca Juniors, traditional Argentine soccer team.
Its story begins in the end of the nineteenth century, when some Italian immigrants settled on that place. At that time, there was a little water stream that passed throught the place, flowing into the river Riachuelo, and the street was called Puntin ( “little bridge” in xeneize, a Genoese dialect). Houses were built of metal sheet and wood, precarious but singular, forming a heterogeneous conglomerate. Their style was the conventillo, traditional from La Boca, a type of urban housing where each room is rented by a family or groups of single men, where everyone shared the same kitchen and bathroom. The houses were structured in galleries around one or several central courtyards and often have poor sanitary conditions.
By the year 1920, a deviation of the railroad to the port passed through there. Over the years, the region became a natural path known as La Curva and it was deteriorated into a dump. In 1950, a group of people including the painter Benito Quinquela Martin (1890-1977), decided to recover the place. In 1959, the municipal government recognized it as a “street museum”, and it was named Caminito. The houses were painted in bright colors, usually leftovers of the painting used on the ships that the inhabitants of the neightboorhood worked on. It is common to see a single house painted multicolored.
In Caminito we can see exhibitions of artists and artisans, little shops of souvenirs, sports clothes, places to dine and watch concerts of tango. It is an outdoor exhibition of art in Argentina. Some improvised tangos can also be seen on the streets. It is an interesting place to visit, very scenic, which shows another side of the Argentinean culture.
Where?
Calle Caminito | Barrio La Boca
sepphora | July 24, 2009 | 4:06 pm | La Boca
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