If the giant leafy neighborhood of Palermo are the lungs of Buenos Aires, then its next-door neighbor Belgrano comprises the rest of the pulmonary system.

This substantial barrio contains a nice mix of bustling commercial streets and quiet tree-lined residential avenues. Named for Argentine forefather and creator of the Argentine flag, Manuel Belgrano, this neighborhood has a refreshing mix of city life within a family-oriented urban community.

Out for a Stroll

Belgrano’s cobbled sidewalks, shaded by enormous trees, are a pleasure to stroll, especially with the plethora of cafés, confiterías (pastry shops), and restaurants found along well-established streets such as Juramento and Luis Maria Campos.

It is nearly impossible to walk more than five Belgrano blocks without running into a beautiful plaza or a stretch of green alongside a busy road. Many fancier but not quite ostentatious locales are tucked away on less-traveled streets, between apartments, schools and an abundance of supermarkets.

Main plazas and parks include Manuel Belgrano Plaza on Juramento, Parque San Benito and Las Barrancas de Belgrano, where three plazas meet along a terraced green area. The well–traveled Avenida del Libertador is also a lovely pathway that includes a bike trail.

Orientation

Belgrano is located north of Palermo alongside the River Plate. It encompasses the major streets of Juramento, Cramer, Libertador, Luis Maria Campos, and Cabildo, and is bordered by Avenida Congresso and Avenida de los Incas.

Three subte (subway) stops are located within Belgrano all along Avenido Cabildo: José Hernandez, Juramento, and Congresso De Túcuman. Bus access is good throughout the neighborhood, and several bike paths exist with the promise of more to come.

Belgrano is divided into four sub-sections.’Belgrano C’ is the commercial district.’Belgrano R’ is a wealthy residential area with lovely ivy-strewn mansions. ‘Bajo Belgrano’ or ‘Belgrano Chico’ contains Ciudad Universitaria, part of the university of Buenos Aires, and Chinatown. The 37-block area of ‘Barrio River’ is so-called because it contains the stadium for the River Plate soccer team.

Since the 19th century Belgrano, along with neighboring Coghlan, was home to upper-middle class British immigrants. The influence is seen in Victorian-era homes and schools such as the Belgrano Day School and the Buenos Aires English High School. The once-strong Irish presence is revered with Irish pubs and the Fahy Club, known for its Irish step-dancing troupe, Celtic Argentina.

A lingering German presence in Belgrano is noted with a yearly Oktoberfest celebration and the barrio’s own dying dialect known as ‘Belgrano-Deutsch,’ a WWII-era mix of German and Spanish.

Places of Interest

photos: Hernan Jourdan

Along with the many supermarkets, vegetable and fruit stands in Belgrano, health food stores are commonplace. Belgrano’s most popular attraction is its ultimate alternative food destination, Barrio Chino.

For athletic attire and mid-range to pricier clothing, Avenida Cabildo is a one-stop shopping destination, particularly between Jose Hernandez and Juramento subway stations. Independent artisans display their wares daily along the sidewalks around Juramento and Cabildo.

Several private universities are in Belgrano, along with multiple private language learning centers.

Belgrano’s cultural offerings include the Museo de Arte Español Enrique Larreta, a Spanish art museum located in the writer and art collector’s former home.

Museo Casa de Yrutia is found in the turn of the 19th century home of sculpture Rogelio Yrurtia and displays a number of his works.

The historic Saramiento Museum in the former Belgrano townhall contains a collection of objects dating to the presidency of Domingo Saramiento.

-Alana Fichman

La Boca is a major sightseeing hot spot in Buenos Aires, but visitors rarely stay here at night. The ‘hit-and-run’ style tourism in the southern neighborhood causes some to write it off as a gimmicky tourist trap.

If you peak behind the colorful façades though, La Boca is one of Buenos Aires’ most authentic barrios and it has been for a long time.

Due to the area’s early influx of immigrants and isolation from the rest of the city, La Boca has a rich cultural history and a long track record of community solidarity, social anarchist politics and a lively arts scene.

At the end of the 19th century, La Boca was to Buenos Aires what Montmartre was to Paris — a sometimes seedy mecca for emerging immigrant artists, in their own little world apart from the city.

As early as 1877 the Cosmopolitan, Philharmonic Friendly Society of La Boca formed to promote the arts and subsequently theaters popped up all over the district. There were also a number of neighborhood publications in Spanish and Italian, including El Ancla, El Riachuelo, El Progreso de La Boca and El Naciónal, a publication that lasted until the 1940’s.

The Independent Republic of La Boca

In the 1880’s the zone seceded from Argentina and was briefly declared, ‘The Independent Republic of La Boca.’

Alfredo Palacios in 1961

A few versions circulate about how the revolt happened. The most popular narrative is that in 1882 young La Boca residents, tired of receiving low wages, liberated themselves and raised the Genoese flag of their homeland. Although the history books make it seem as if it was a rag-tag effort, then-President Julio A. Roca gathered his army and visited the site to lower the flag himself.

The lively politics didn’t stop the neighborhood’s growth, and millions of mostly European immigrants, many political exiles, would come through La Boca in the following years.

In 1904 La Boca elected Alfredo Palacios to the Argentine congress. He was the first socialist representative in all of Latin America. Palacios had a long and fruitful career lasting until 1965. He was behind the creation of many Argentine labor laws, especially concerning women and children.

La Boca Today

Today La Boca is still a neighborhood with many immigrants, mostly Bolivians, Paraguayans, Peruvians and some Arabs, Africans and artists from other parts of Latin America.

Some of La Boca’s homes are still conventillos (community style housing). As in nearby San Telmo, some of those are casas tomadas, or squats occupied by residents marginalized by their nationality, poverty and/or lack of education.

The brightly painted homes (themselves the result of a 1950′s effort to revive the district), the overpriced restaurants and sidewalk tango dancers in the neighborhood’s epicenter are just a photo-worthy part of the bigger picture.

The volunteer fire brigade of La Boca, founded in 1884, was the first to form in the country. Today the firefighters are still volunteers and are viewed as national heroes and the city’s quickest responders. La Boca is also home to one of the country’s first community radio stations, La Boca 90.1 FM, founded in 1986.

La Boca also enjoys some of the city’s best candombe groups and murgas (music and dance troops) highlighting the mark early Afro-Argentines left on the neighborhood.

Community gardens, with participation levels that wax and wane from season to season, are dotted on abandoned plots throughout the neighborhood.

“The real La Boca begins when the tourists go home, at around six p.m. or so,” says Laura Barroso, a lifelong resident of the neighborhood. “It’s full of tenements so everyone is always on the street — it’s like the patio of the neighborhood. People hang out in the street, eat in the street and everyone pretty much knows each other.”

La Boca, the Buenos Aires’ neighborhood famed for its colorful houses, its tango and its soccer team, is the one spot that makes every visitor’s agenda.

The centerpiece is the cobblestone strip, El Caminito, or little walkway. The one-time railway route is lined with the bright facades that make La Boca postcard perfect. Named for a 1926 tango song, the pedestrian lane features an outdoor fair where artists sell their wares and tango dancers prance along the sidewalk in between photo ops with tourists.

But there’s much more to La Boca than what meets the casual tourist’s eye. Like New York City’s Lower East Side and London’s East End, La Boca was the neighborhood where new immigrants first established themselves when they arrived in Buenos Aires.

The neighborhood may derive its name from its location at ‘La Boca’ (the mouth) of the Riochuelo, as the Mantanza River is usually called. The port-side barrio is an obvious point for boats to come ashore and historians say the Spanish first landed in La Boca as early as 1536.

During their early colonial expansion the colonizers housed African slaves in this area. After Argentina gained independence many of the freed stayed. With the arrival of the industrial revolution La Boca grew into a gritty shipyard area with meat curing plants and tanneries.

Xeneizes, Tango and Lunfardo

Mass settlement in La Boca began in 1830, with an influx of immigrants from Genoa, Italy. Coming from a port city, it was natural for the Genoese to settle along the Buenos Aires waterfront. There were so many Genoese in La Boca at that time that some say the name is a spin-off of the name Boccadasse, a neighborhood in Genoa.

The new arrivals constructed tenements made of scrap metal and painted the shacks with bright leftover marine paint to liven up the one-time wasteland. Soon the Italians were joined by immigrants from Spain, France, England, Ireland, Eastern Europe and Greece and among others. The cross-cultural mix gave birth to tango, although the term wouldn’t be coined until the end of the 1890’s. Factory and port workers would gather to dance in the central halls of the tenements and vie to grab the attention of the few women available at the time.

La Boca also played a fundamental part in the creation of the Argentine slang, lunfardo. The vocabulary grew out of cocoliche, a mix of Italian dialects that immigrants used to communicate with each other. Even the barrio’s famous soccer team, La Boca Juniors are also called Los Xeneizes, derived from the word for ‘Genoese’ in the Italian dialect.

By the turn of the 19th century the area was the second most populated zone in Buenos Aires but the construction of a new port in Puerto Madero meant the shipping industry would move northward. As Argentina entered its golden era, residents moved further inland and La Boca began to decline

La Boca’s Revival

A revival of El Caminito and La Boca in the 1950’s was lead by artist, Quinquela Martín. Martín was abandoned at birth but was later adopted and spent a good portion of his childhood in La Boca. Against the odds, after studying drawing at a La Boca night school, he ended up becoming one of Argentina’s most famous painters and a major neighborhood philanthropist.

After the General Roca railway train line, which ran through here shut down in 1954, Martín set to work to save the barrio. He gathered neighbors to paint the houses bright colors, emulating the early immigrants. The artists began to host theater here using the backdrop of house as part of the scenes.

At the urging of Martín, in 1959 the city government officially declared the street El Caminto an open-air museum. It’s named in honor of Martín’s friend, Juan de Dios Filibrito, a former La Boca resident who co-authored the tango tune of the same name.

Safety

As in most places where a popular tourist attraction sits in the middle of an economically disadvantaged neighborhood, La Boca can be dangerous for visitors who stray off the tourist path.

Most just see El Caminito, its the few surrounding streets and La Bombonera the stadium where Diego Maradona became ‘God’ for his fans. For low-profile travelers who want to explore more of the neighborhood, there are many interesting sites here, just don’t carry anything you can’t afford to lose. A nice way to explore a La Boca with relative anonymity is on bicycle. If you are headed to La Boca at night to eat in one of its many cantinas or dance tango, the usual advice is to take a taxi to and from your destination.

La Boca Safety Tips:

• Don’t carry anything you can’t afford to lose
• Be careful straying of the tourist path, which include EL Caminto and the few surrounding blocks.
• Don’t ever wear a River Plate shirt to La Boca — that’s the soccer team’s biggest rival and you’d be asking for trouble.

Getting to La Boca:

-Subway: There is no subway to La Boca

-Bus lines:
20, 25, 29, 33, 46, 53, 64, 86, 129, 152, 159, 168, 195

El Caminito

El Caminito is ground zero for visitors to La Boca and is among Argentina’s top tourist destinations. El Caminto, or ‘little walkway’ is a pedestrian street set along the old railroad lines built here in 1866. In the 1950’s local artist Quinquela Martín and other neighbors were inspired to paint the houses with bright colors, emulating the spirit of the early immigrants to the city.

Since 1959 El Caminito has served as an open-air museum, where visitors can take snaps of the colorful houses, see some street tango dancing and purchase works of art from vendors who set up along the thoroughfare. El Caminito is photogenic and is probably Buenos Aires biggest tourist trap, with overpriced restaurants and trinket shops. The strip is not representative of the rest of the neighborhood, but unfortunately it is all that many visitors see.

Vuelta de Rocha
Along the waterway, by the bustop

Declared a site of historic interest in 1949, this cobblestone plaza is where Commander Guillermo Brown established the naval dockyard of his army in the war against Brazil. Named for Antonio Rocha who later built the little plaza here, it was formally known as ‘The Plaza of Sighs,’ so called for the nostalgic sighs of the Genoese immigrants who would congregate here.

Puente Nicolas Avellaneda

From Vuelta de Rocha you can see the emblematic Ferry Bridge of Nicolás Avellaneda. Built in 1908, it was one of 20 bridges of its kind constructed in the 20th century and is one of eight left standing today. It was constructed in England and assembled in Buenos Aires. It is the only of its kind outside of Europe.

Although it remained in disuse since 1960, it was declared an historic monument in 1999. In one of La Boca’s latest triumphs, in 2010 the bridge was re-inaugurated with a fresh coat of orange paint, and glassed-in walkways that give a good panorama view of the city. Pedestrians and bikers no longer have to take boats to reach Maciel Island in Avellaneda, across the water.

One hundred meters from the old ferry bridge sits the newer bridge of the same name that is still in use for automobile traffic.

Quinquela Martín Museum of Fine Arts
Av. Pedro de Mendoza 1835/43
Tel: 4301-1080

• Hours: Tue-Sun: 11:00 a.m. —6:00 p.m.

In 1936 painter Quinquela Martín created this primary school and decorated the classrooms with his murals. On the third floor is the museum, with 90 of Martín’s works depicting life on the port, as well as a selection of works by other Argentine artists. In early 2011, President Cristina Kirchner declared the building a National Historic Monument. Entrance is free with a suggested donation of AR$5.

Fundación Proa
Avenida de Pedro Mendoza 1929
Tel: 4104-1000

The Bow Foundation is an arts center that features six temporary exhibits per year including world-renowned contemporary masters such as Marcel Duchamp and Argentina’s own Marta Minujín. The foundation also contains a library, rooftop café and an auditorium with weekly culture-related events.

Boca juniors Stadium (La Bombonera)
Brandsen 805
Tel: 4362-2260

Argentina’s most famous stadium is officially named Alberto J. Armando Stadium but everyone just knows it as La Bombonera (‘The Chocolate Box’). This is the home stadium for Argentina’s most popular underdog winners who made Diego Maradona famous, La Boca Juniors.

The 60,000-person stadium was built by Slovenian architect, Victor Sulcic, who also made up that team that built the Mercado de Abasto. The stadium was inaugurated in 1940 and built with the aim to fit in as many people as possible into a reduced space. In the entrance hall visitors can see a mural by La Boca’s most famous son, Quinquela Martín. The painting represents the moment the founder’s of the team selected the club’s colors. On the outside of the stadium is another mural by Pérez Celis

Bomberos Voluntarios de la Boca/Volunteer Fire Department
Brandsen 567
Tel: 4361 2222

The La Boca Volunteer fire department was founded in 1884 out of great necessity. Los Bomberos Voluntarios de la Boca are celebrated for their bravery in fighting against fires, floods and epidemics from their founding to the present. The current barracks was constructed in 1890 and was declared a site of cultural interest by the city in 2002. The fire department is an integral part of the neighborhood, with a popular band that provides music for local festivals and street parties.

Wax Museum/Museo de Cera
Del Valle Iberlucea 1261
Tel: 4303-0563

photo: Christian Haugen

The only wax museum in Argentina with scenes depicting life in La Boca through the years. Scenes by artist Domingo Telechea depict gauchos, Afro-Argentines, sports figures and immigrants who built the country. In addition to the lifelike depictions of the La Boca of old there is a large collection of old photographs, newspaper clippings and tango memorabilia of the neighborhood. It’s located in an Italian Renaissance style house dating to 1902. It was dubbed a site of cultural interest by the city

San Juan Evangelist Church
Olavarría 486

La Boca isn’t a neighborhood with as many churches as others but San Juan Evangelista is the barrio’s oldest house of worship. It has been on this spot since 1859. The neighborhood of La Boca was officially established after the church hosted a magistrate court here. The current building was completed in 1886.

Torre de Fantasma/The Haunted Tower
Benito Perez Galdos 390

photo: José María Nuñez

A modern Catalán/Art Nouveau style building constructed in by Catalonian architect, Guillermo Alvarez. Neighborhood legend says that a down-and-out female painter known as Clementina jumped to her death here at the turn of the 19th century. Residents can still hear her walking the halls and sometimes screaming at night, prompting at least one former resident to move.

Casa Amarilla
Almirante Brown 401

A replica of the home of one Argentina’s war heroes and most famous Irish immigrants, Guillermo Brown. After Brown lost his leg fighting for Argentine independence, he built his home on this land and continued to command the army resulting in victories against Uruguay and Brazil. Today it functions as the Naval Historical Studies Institute. From here you may spot players from the Boca Juniors practicing on the fields nearby.

Buenos Aires’ Barrio Chino (that would be Chinatown) may only comprise a few city streets, but is nonetheless difficult to miss. Beginning alongside the train tracks at the intersection of Juramento and Arribeños in Belgrano, arrival at Barrio Chino is signaled by an ornate stone archway.

While Argentina’s only Chinatown is minuscule compared to those of London, Sydney or San Francisco, its cultural impact on the city is huge. The neighborhood has over a 100 Asian-owned businesses and receives 15,000 visitors every weekend.

BA’s Little Tiger Economy

‘Barrio Chino’ is a bit of a misnomer as the neighborhood is the home to a cross-section of Asian-owned business. Beginning in the 1980’s Taiwanese began to arrive in this area, followed in the 90s by those from Mainland China. Preexisting Korean, Japanese and Laotian immigrants began to congregate around the area as well. At first there was just a smattering of supermarkets. As the Asian immigrant population grew along came restaurants, schools, oriental variety shops, Chinese video clubs and beauty salons.

At the Tzong Kuan temple, one of the few Buddhist temples in the city, one can pay homage to a big shiny Buddha and attend classes in meditation, Chinese calligraphy, Mandarin, Kung Fu and Tai Chi Chaun. Those looking for alternative medical treatments come here to find acupuncturists and Chinese remedies at the neighborhood herbalists.

In 2006 a group of area businessmen tried to get Chinatown officially recognized as its own neighborhood along with the 48 other ‘barrios’ of Buenos Aires, but the Department of Urban Planning rejected the idea, noting that the denomination does not actually reflect the neighborhood’s true population.

While this area is the commercial focal point for the entire Asian community in Buenos Aires, Chinese residents make up less than 1% of the residential population of Belgrano. Most of the city’s 120,000 Chinese residents live in lower rent neighborhoods such as Once, Flores, Barracas and the city suburbs.

Some say, ‘Feng Shui? — No Way!’

Officially Barrio Chino is limited by Juramento, Arribeños, Montañeses and Monroe Avenue, but as the neighborhood booms, its boundaries are creeping outward each year. While Chinatown has become a fashionable place to visit for ever-trendy Porteños and spice-craving foreigners, a small but vocal group of area residents feel threatened by the neighborhood’s expansion.

The controversy came to a head in 2009 when the $500,000 archway, shipped in five containers from China, was placed at the entrance way of the neighborhood. The installation was delayed because of complaints that it didn’t conform with zoning laws, but the city stepped in to rezone the area shortly before coronation, causing accusations of corruption. In an unusual move, Mayor Mauricio Macri received the gift from Zhou Tienong of the Assembly of the People’s Republic of China in a ceremony at the Capitol building, cutting the ribbon in front of a drawing of the arch instead of holding the inauguration on site.

The same day the civil association, ‘Neighbors of Belgrano’ held a rally in front of the Chinese Embassy to denounce what they refer to as the ‘Archway of Lies.’ Among the group’s legal grievances are the felling of neighborhood trees, zoning infractions, the sale of expired food and garbage in the street, but considering that property values have risen in the area, they have widely been painted as xenophobes — or at least resistant to change.

For 27-year-old Vanessa Liao, coordinator at the Chinese-Argentine Cultural Association, the archway validates the growing Asian community in Buenos Aires. “The archway shows that we are really accepted here,” she says. “In recent years the Argentines are more accepting of us, they come here for the shopping and the festivals and even to study the language. There is more interest in Chinese culture now than when I was growing up. That’s good because people feel more at home here.”

Chinatown is celebrated for its great food shopping, Asian restaurants ranging from hole-in-the-wall to high-end, stores with inexpensive oriental merchandise and even and J-Pop (Japanese pop music), Anime and manga (adult comics) outlets.

Photos: Totu

Barrio Chino’s biggest yearly celebration Chinese New Year is held every February on the closest Sunday to the date of the New Year.

Getting there

Buses: 15, 29, 42, 44, 60, 63, 64, 65, 80, 107, 113, 114, 118, 130.
Train: Belgrano C Station, Bartolome Mitre line
Subway: Juramento Station, Line D

Templo Tzong Kuan/ Chinese-Argentine Cultural Association
Montañeses 2175
Tel: 4786-9499

Not selling out: A life-long San Telmo resident at home

San Telmo vies with nearby La Boca for the title of ‘the barrio that birthed the tango.’
While the birthright of tango may boil down to a technicality, lively San Telmo remains a focal point of the city’s tango and art scenes.

Buenos Aires’ most historic neighborhood has narrow cobblestone streets lined with resplendent, often crumbling buildings, family-owned bakeries, antiquated hardware stores, and an eclectic mix of bars, cafes and restaurants.

Fearless kids play soccer on the streets between traffic, cumbia and tango music waft onto the sidewalks, young couples kiss in doorways and cats lounge in windowsills. If there’s a game on, the screams can be heard every time the neighborhood’s favorite soccer team, La Boca scores a goal.

‘The Republic of San Telmo’ is chaotic, sometimes dirty and at once touristy in parts, but it is the neighborhood that elicits the deepest and most enduring affection for those visitors who get hooked.

A Neighborhood of Immigrants

Named after the Patron Saint of seafarers, San Pedro González Telmo,  this area has a long history as Buenos Aires’ most culturally diverse neighborhood. In the 17th-century it was home to laborers arriving from Spain and Italy and later thousands of Irish, Russians, Poles, Germans and freed African slaves.

The 19th-century architecture throughout the neighborhood reveals the brief period when this was one of Buenos Aires’ wealthier districts. Improved infrastructure including sewer lines and gas lights installed in 1852 attracted the well-to-do who built the mansions that can still be seen today.

When a yellow fever epidemic that claimed the lives of thousands broke out here in 1871, wealthy residents moved north to lower-risk areas such as Recoleta.

Left empty, San Telmo’s mansions were divided up and rented to new immigrants that arrived during intense periods of immigration that lasted until after World War II. Today, the neighborhood is still home to struggling immigrants in low-rent tenements, and even a few remaining squats, but many among the newcomers are European and American travelers as well as students and artists from all over South America.

‘San Telmo Palermo’

A new vibe: San Telmo-Palermo

In recent years some residents have griped about what is described as the ‘Palermo-fication’ of San Telmo. The neighborhood of 26,000 residents is sprucing up in some areas with the addition of Latin America’s first five-star gay hotel, boutique clothing shops and sterile chain ice-cream stores. Restaurants offering ‘fashion sushi’ have arrived and ostentatious glass-paneled storefronts look out of place but overall San Telmo stubbornly remains untamed.

Property prices for the historic buildings have skyrocketed in the last few years, but the neighborhood that claims to be the ‘refuge of friendship and happiness’ refuses to sell its soul.

Read more about San Telmo:

→ San Telmo Street Fair

→ San Telmo Fair Shopping Tips

→ The San Telmo Market

Puerto Madero is a nice neighborhood to lounge in one of many parks, ride a bike and perhaps dine on the waterfront, but it’s not distinguished for its abundance of touristic sights. There are a handful of attractions for sightseers, history buffs and art lovers in Puerto Madero though.

On the east side of dock four, by crane eight, you can stroll by the tourist information office of Puerto Madero to pick up some maps and tourist info in a variety of languages.

Along the southern side of Puerto Madero is Buenos Aires only floating casino, the ‘Star of Fortune,’ a replica of a Mississippi riverboat. Casino Puerto Madero has 700 slot machines and 150 tables of the standard casino games and is open 24 hours a day. If you lose money here we would like to say you could take comfort knowing that the income earned is invested back into the country– profits go to the Argentine National Lottery, but they are currently facing legal action for a lack of transparency.

On dock two you can step into the Catholic University of Argentina’s Art Pavilion and check out some interesting exhibitions for free.

On dock four, near the tourist information center, is the Corbeta Uruguay Museum, a gunner boat that pioneered Arctic exploration. This 1874 boat is the oldest of Argentina’s navy’s fleet.

If one boat isn’t sufficient on dock three you can visit the Fragata Presidente Sarmiento, a 1897 Argentine Navy training boat converted into a museum that will delight kids. This ship, now declared a national monument, sailed around the world over 40 times and hosted notable guests such as Theodore Roosevelt.

Crossing over to the eastern side of the water, you’ll pass the Buenos Aires Yatch Club and the 200 sailboats docked there. There is a nautical school here that gives classes in sailing, rowing and kayaking.

On the same side of the dock is the public art collection of Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat, one of Argentina’s wealthiest women. Over 200 works on display in a modern building of glass and steel. It has electronically controlled moving panels that allow for maximum control of the natural light. Among the artists whose works on display are Joseph Mallord, William Turner, Andy Warhol and Pieter Brueghel II and Argentine artists such as Xul Solar and Antonio Berni.

East of all the action in central Puerto Madero you can also take a ramble around the sprawling Costanera Sur, where you can visit the Museum Center of Buenos Aires in the old Munich Brewery and enter the peaceful confines of the Costanera Sur Ecological Reserve, a national park running along the eastern side of Puerto Madero.

Tourist information Center, Puerto Madero
Av. Alicia Moreau de Justo 200
Dock 4, Crane 8
Tel: 4313-0187

• Hours: Mon-Sat, 10 am—6 pm

Casino Puerto Madero
Elvira Rawson de Dellepiane (no number)
Dock 1
Tel: 
4363-3100

Catholic University of Argentina Art’s Pavilion
Paseo Joan M. Gorriti 1300
Dock 2
Tel: 4349-0200

• Hours:Tues—Sun: 11a.m.—7p.m
• Cost: free

Frigate President Sarmiento Museum
Dock 3 (Juana M. Gorriti)
Tel (for guided tours): 4334-9389
• Hours: Sun—Fri 9 am-10 pm, Sat: 9am—11pm
• Cost: AR$2/children under five free

Corbeta Uruguay Museum
600 Juana M. Gorriti
Dock 4
Tel: 4314-1090 (to arrange guided tours)

• Hours: Everyday, 10am-9pm
•Cost: AR$1/children under five free

Yacht Club Puerto Madero
Dock four
Tel: 4313-8008

Art Collection of Amalia Lacroze de Fortabat
Olga Cossettini 141
Dock 4
Tel: 4310-6600

• Entrance: AR$ 15
• Hours: Tue- Sun; 12—9 pm
• Closed Mondays
• Guided tours in Spanish everyday at 5 pm

Costanera Sur Ecological Reserve
Av. Costanera Tristan Achaval Rodríguez 1550
Tel. 4315-4129/4893-1853
• Cost: free

Museum Center of Buenos Aires/Munich Brewery
Av. de los Italianos 851
Tel: 4516-0943/ 4/9
• Hours: Mon-Fri; 10am–6pm
Sat &Sun: 10am-7pm
• Residents: AR$1/Non-residents: AR$3

Spanning the limit from La Boca on its south side to Retiro on the north, Puerto Madero is one of the few neighborhoods in Buenos Aires in which to enjoy a glistening waterfront, even if — truth be told — it’s really just a causeway filled with brackish water from the River Plate.

The neighborhood owes its name to Eduardo Madero, a businessman who was contracted in 1882 by the government to construct the levees that would allow large boats to come into Buenos Aires. The city was experiencing a lot of growth at the time but exports were retrained because boats had to anchor far off land due to shallow waters.

Madero’s port solved this problem and was considered an engineering feat that projected an image of Buenos Aires’ modernity — even back then. The project lacked foresight though and within ten years of Puerto Madero’s completion in 1898, it was obsolete because the size of the boats coming to port increased. Puerto Nuevo, a mile north then became the city’s main port and for most the remainder of the 20th century Puerto Madero steadily deteriorated into a wasteland and dumping ground.

All in the Name of Progress

Puerto Madero before its resurrection

After various proposals to resurrect the area throughout the 20th century, it wasn’t until 1989 under President Carlos Menem that an urbanization plan came into place. In a scheme typical of the now unpopular president he created a private corporation — split equally between the federal government and the city of Buenos Aires — to fund the project. Once incorporated, the land of Puerto Madero was parceled out to private entities. In 1996 it was officially designated as neighborhood 47 and within the last ten years it has boomed. Today Puerto Madero is Buenos Aires’ wealthiest and fastest growing neighborhood.

Puerto Madero residents benefit from the greenery of the Ecological Reserve and the open parks of Costanera Sur but a slight drawback for those living or staying here is it is somewhat disconnected from the rest of the city, lacking in subway service and away from the city’s major arteries. Most denizens here own cars, but other  transportation options are improving.

One of the newest transport alternatives is the Puerto Madero Tramway, hastily inaugurated in 2007, just before the elections. The AR$ 1 train ride won’t get you far yet –- the current two kilometer service runs from the intersection of Independencia to Cordoba Street. Plans are in place to extend the line two kilometers north to Retiro train station, to Caminto in La Boca to the south and — if city officials can come to an agreement — Constitución train station.

A company called Sturla Viajes is now offering a ferry service to get to Puerto Madero from the northern suburbs, at a cost of only AR$ 15 per trip.

A new bicycle path connecting Retiro and La Boca also passes through Puerto Madero.

Puerto Madero is Buenos Aires’ ritzy prototype of modernity in a city otherwise beloved for its history.

The city’s newest district, with its sleek high-rises, perfect sidewalks and well-equipped parks is considered one of the most successful urban waterfront restoration projects in the world. The long, narrow dockside neighborhood adorned by young urban professionals now beats out the more aristocratic Recoleta as the most exclusive among Buenos Aires’ 48 neighborhoods.

Walking around Puerto Madero it’s hard to believe that twenty years ago this area was nothing but an urban wasteland occupied only by empty warehouses, zombies and rats.

The neighborhood currently has 12,500 residents, and due to what seems like a new apartment tower every month that number is growing rapidly. The latest Buenos Aires’ census indicates that it remains the city’s fastest growing neighborhood. Among tourists, the area is favored by business travelers – some of Buenos Aires’ most exclusive hotels are located here including Hilton Puerto Madero and the Faena Hotel+Universe, voted by Travel And Leisure magazine as one of the top 500 hotels in the world.

While the apartment towers in the neighborhood are new, on the west docks are Puerto Madero’s original four-story red brick warehouses dating to 1900. More than a century ago these buildings served as offices and grain storage for shipping companies. The English-style warehouses now contain luxury offices, restaurants, a movie theater and a private Catholic university. In keeping with its innovative reputation, in 2008 Google Argentina fittingly decided to locate their national headquarters here in an event that was attended by President Cristina Kichner.

Photo:Resquin

A Neighborhood Honoring Argentina’s Women

If Puerto Madero’s shininess doesn’t win over visitors with more classical tastes, its conceptualization as homage to women might. The street names here all identify famous Argentine women such as Aimé Painé, a Mapuche princess and singer who fought for indigenous rights; ‘disappeared’ Argentine activist Azucena Villaflor and feminist and politician, Alicia Moreau de Justo. The neighborhood’s newly-coined street, Niní Marshall was chosen by citizens in an online poll in honor of Argentina’s answer to Lucile Ball.

Most notable among the area’s landmarks is the beautiful Puente de la Mujer (Woman’s Bridge) inaugurated in 1991. Designed by Spanish architect, Santiago Calatrava, the pedestrian bridge connects the east and west sides of the docks and rotates 90 degrees to allow boats to pass. Calatrava says the bridge represents a couple dancing tango but the symbolism is so abstract that you can only conclude that ‘a couple dancing tango’ is an euphemism. It is one of the visual highlights in the neighborhood, particularly when illuminated at night.

Puerto Madero’s privileged backyard playgrounds are the ecological reserve, a 360-hectacre national park and the rambling coastal esplanade, the Costanera Sur.

The days of taking a dip in the River Plate are long over but the Costanera Sur is still a classic place to pass a relaxed weekend afternoon in Buenos Aires. Located between the Costanera Sur Ecological Reserve and central Puerto Madero, its rambling promenade is visited by sun-worshiping families, caressing couples and friends drinking mate. Its also famous for having some of the best choripán stands in the city—eating the huge sausage sandwiches with piles of condiments is pretty much a requisite for non-vegetarian visitors.

The coastal road is tucked behind Buenos Aires’ wealthiest neighborhood, Puerto Madero and alongside of its poorest, the slum neighborhood of Rodrigo Bueno and further afield, La Boca. The juxtaposition means there is always an interesting array of people here and thanks to a good police presence in the area there’s very little street crime.

Attractions

The parks along the Costanera Sur contain an outdoor amphitheater where the city sponsors summer film showings, and hosts international music acts such as Air and Juana Molina. Here there are also some of the city’s nicest playgrounds; sprawling well-coiffed greenery to kick a ball around and a lovely rose garden.

While at the Costanera you can’t miss the Fuente de las Nereidas, or Water Nymphs’ Fountain, one of Buenos Aires’ most enchanting monuments. It’s on the corner of Tristán Achával Rodríguez and Padre Migone, near the entrance to the Costanera Sur Ecological Reserve.

The renaissance style sculpture, built in Rome by Argentine sculptor, Lola Mora represents the birth of Venus. The nude figure of the Love Goddess emerging from a seashell and held up by two mermaids was considered quite racy in its day. Moralistic city officials even had it relocated from Plaza de Mayo to a more discreet location in Montserrat before finally settling on its current location in 1916. Before the revitalization of Puerto Madero the sculpture sat here lonely and neglected for decades, but it has now received its due recognition, been declared a national historic monument and is protected by glass panels.

Sundays in the Costanera

Every sunny Sunday along the Costanera Sur there is an outdoor street fair with everything on sale from home baked pies, handmade clothes and odd antiques. It’s a relaxed and modest street fair and although it’s not the ultimate shopping experience, it provides a much more authentic, tourist-free taste of Argentina than the nearby San Telmo street fair that falls on the same day.

There is also fun outdoor dance hosted by ‘DJ Omar’ near the entrance to the ecological reserve where everyone from toddlers to grandmothers dance everything from Argentine folkloric dances, salsa, cumbia and 50’s rock and roll all afternoon.

Costanera Sur
Puerto Madero

Getting there:
• Buses: 2,4,103,111
• By bike from Palermo: Take the bike lane from Plaza Italia along Avenida del Libertador to Retiro, from Retiro along the lower corridor, starting at Avenida Antártida Argentina
• By bike or foot from San Telmo: Take Belgrano or Estado Unidos heading east
• From Downtown: Take Cordoba or Gral. Juan Domingo Perón heading east