Boedo (Buenos Aires)

Boedo is one of the 48 neighborhoods of the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is delimited by Avenida Independencia, Sánchez de Loria, Avenida Caseros and Avenida La Plata. It borders the neighborhoods of Almagro to the north, San Cristóbal and Parque Patricios to the east, Nueva Pompeya to the south, and Parque Chacabuco and Caballito to the west. It belongs to Commune 5.

It has an approximate area of 2.61 km² and a population of 47,306 inhabitants according to the 2010 census. Its population density is 18,127 inhabitants/km².

Features

Boedo was born as a typical proletarian neighborhood in the south of the city that gained notoriety with the appearance of social literature developed from the emergence of the Boedo Group. It developed around the homonymous avenue, took its name and made it official with its limits starting in 1972. Its old houses contrast, as in several neighborhoods of the Federal Capital, with the modern buildings built in recent years. Despite the large number of tangos that talk about Boedo, this is one of the freshest and youngest neighborhoods. The 25 de Mayo Highway, parallel to Avenida San Juan and Avenida Pavón, crosses the neighborhood from east to west.

Toponymy

Boedo is the only neighborhood in the city of Buenos Aires that takes its name in relation to a specific avenue. Boedo Avenue has been named in honor of Dr. Mariano Joaquín Boedo since 1882. Dr. Boedo was a brilliant lawyer from Salta who was born in 1782 and was a deputy of his province. He dedicated his life to the cause of Independence and was a signatory of the National Independence Act. Due to his performance, he was named vice president of the Congress of Tucumán. In 1817 he was elected president of the City of Buenos Aires and he died two years later, at only 37 years old.

History

Originally, the space occupied by the Boedo neighborhood was a territory shared between the neighborhoods of Almagro, San Cristóbal and Parque de los Patricios. There were brick ovens, dairy farms, bakery mills, grocery stores and warehouses. At the beginning of the 20th century cafes, tango and poets began to appear.

The city of Buenos Aires incorporated it into the municipal cadastre on March 6, 1882, when it was still a semi-rural area surrounding Boedo Street. This street was an important circulation route, used in the last decades of the 19th century by blood-powered vehicles and herds of animals. Already well into the 20th century, the first electric trams arrived in the area. The tram network was one of the factors settlement of the first settlers. The targeted growth process had particular characteristics in the neighborhood formed in the surroundings of Boedo Street. It was a place of villas, of several hectares of surface, which underwent a continuous process of subdivision, appearing low-cost, traditional-sized properties mostly occupied by immigrants, a situation that extended until the first three decades of the XX century.

Limits

Boedo is separated from Parque Patricios by Avenida Caseros, from Almagro by Independencia, from San Cristóbal by Sánchez de Loria streets and from Caballito and Parque Chacabuco by Avenida La Plata. Its area is 2.6 square kilometers

Featured corners

On the corner of San Juan and Boedo, where the "Airplane Café" was formerly located, which was later renamed "Nippon" and "Canadian", today the café "Esquina Homero Manzi" is located. Homero Manzi Popular mythology affirms that Manzi composed the lyrics of the tango Sur there and The cafe was declared a National Historic Site by Law number 24,704.

"San Juan y Boedo antique, and all the sky/ Pompeii and beyond the flood / Your girlfriend's melena in memory / and your name blooming in goodbye. / The corner of the blacksmith, mud and pampa / your house, your sidewalk and the ditch / and a perfume of yuyos and alfalfa / that fills my heart again. "

The corner of San Juan and Boedo is mentioned in the opening verse of the tango Sur, one of the most representative songs of Buenos Aires. In honor of its author, this point has been called Homero Manzi Corner, and hosts several tango festivals throughout the year. Boedo Avenue was recently named 'Paseo del Tango' by the Government of the City of Buenos Aires.

Another of the important corners of the Boedo neighborhood is San Ignacio and Boedo. For years, a kind of proletarian forum was maintained there where the voices of the most important thinkers of the Socialist Party were heard. In the 1920s and 1930s there at the Café El Japonés a great cultural activity was focused with the Boedo Group of literature by writers such as Roberto Arlt but also tango musicians such as Juan de Dios Filiberto and also related to players, leaders and sympathizers of the Club Atlético Huracán In the 1980s, sculptures made in Buenos Aires were exhibited. The milonga "Cortada de San Ignacio", with music by Horacio Salgán and lyrics by Carmelo Volpe, remembers the corner that was named after "Sculptor Francisco Reyes" in honor of the distinguished plastic artist and resident of Boedo.

Green spaces

In 2016 Boedo was the Buenos Aires neighborhood with the least green space per inhabitant.

It has only one square, in more than 500 blocks. The latest figures indicate that in the neighborhood there are 0.2 green square meters per inhabitant, well below the 5.9 average that the City has, and even more relegated when compared to the minimum recommended by the UN, which is 10 square meters per inhabitant. In recent years, the loss of green spaces in the City has worsened, which in 2016 lost 26 hectares of parks in one year.

Boedo, in its green space, presents old trees on its sidewalks that give natural life to its open streets.^{[citation required]} As the tango written by Dante says A. Linyera, the inhabitants feel identified with their neighborhood:

"Boedo, you are like me: / Malevo as it is the gout / open as a heart, / that already became tired of grief. / The same thing that you are like this / on the outside cordial and singer / to all I beat them that yes / and to my heart I beat him no. "

On Independencia Avenue, between Mármol and Muñiz streets, Boedo exhibits a small square that was created by the City Government. It was baptized as "Plaza Sara Vaamonde" the creation was promoted by a group of neighbors and the Florentino Ameghino Neighborhood Civil Association. In 2010, the Government of the City of Buenos Aires inaugurated a new plaza, also based on the struggle of many neighbors, who, grouped in a neighborhood association (Asociación Civil Cultural Ambiental Todos por la Plaza Boedo) managed to get the City Government recover the property that was about to be sold and build the Plaza Mariano Boedo. In 2022, also in a participatory process in which the residents of the area were part, a vacant lot became the "Plaza 18 de Diciembre de 2022" in reference to the date on which Argentina won the men's soccer world championship. As a tribute to the team that demonstrated that the values of unity, perseverance, and teamwork became an unquestionable example for all the Argentine people. It has a mural of Lionel Messi.

On the other hand, there is the Lorenzo Massa square, located in José Mármol between Inclán and Salcedo, built on part of the land that was owned by the San Lorenzo de Almagro Athletic Club. The place was transferred to that institution by a municipal law in 2008.

Featured bars and cafes

Café Dante, which was located at Boedo 745, was famous because the players and leaders of the Club Atlético San Lorenzo de Almagro met there. It was also a meeting place for the members of La República de Boedo. It operated at least from 1917 (the date of the beginning of its activities is not known precisely) until the present. Café Dante was the place identified with the San Lorenzo fans as well as the aforementioned Café El Japonés was the meeting place for the people of the Huracán Club as well as the Boedo Literature Group.

Café El Capuchino was another of Boedo's outstanding cafes. Although it has now disappeared, it is worth remembering that the most famous of the dancers of the first decades, Ovidio José Bianquet, better known as "El cachafaz", knew how to dance there.

The Cultural Café «Bien Bohemio» located at 745 Sánchez de Loria Street was the house where the composer, arranger and bandoneon player Titi Rossi lived, author of great tangos and waltzes such as «Bien Bohemio», «Sugar, pepper and salt », «This is how my grandparents danced», «They have forbidden me from loving you», among others. Countless great tango voices such as Varela and many more passed through this place. At 1700 Avenida La Plata was the stadium of the Club Atlético San Lorenzo de Almagro known as “Viejo Gasómetro”. Then the land came under a supermarket company, and later, the Club recovered said property.

Culture

The first independent theaters were born in the Boedo neighborhood. Rooms such as the Florencio Sánchez theater and other more commercial ones such as the América theater and the Boedo theater, presented important figures in the artistic field. In these rooms, pieces that had previously been performed in the center of Buenos Aires were performed. Furthermore, only one Church stands in the Boedo neighborhood. The church of San Bartolomé Apóstol, in romantic style, is located on Avenida Chiclana 3659. It only has a tower and a central altar with the image of the saint. On one side is the mixed primary and secondary school, which bears the same name.

The Boedo group was a group of left-wing Argentine and Uruguayan writers of the 1920s. Among its members were Enrique Amorim, Leónidas Barletta, Elías Castelnuovo, Roberto Mariani, Nicolás Olivari, Lorenzo Stanchina, César Tiempo and Álvaro Yunque. (See Café El Japonés, the group's historic meeting place).

Among the magazines associated with this group were Dínamo, Extrema Izquierda and Los Pensadores.

Olivari, who was one of the founders of the Boedo group, later became part of the less politicized Florida Group. The writer Roberto Arlt also had contacts with both groups and Roberto Mariani published notes in Martín Fierro that was considered within the Florida Group.

Communications

The Boedo neighborhood is connected to the rest of the city thanks to numerous bus lines, and the E subway line (Boedo and Avenida La Plata stations).

The main road arteries in the neighborhood are Boedo, San Juan, Independencia and La Plata avenues.

San Lorenzo de Almagro

The San Lorenzo Club was founded in 1908 at the initiative of a group of young people who got together to play soccer on the corner of México and Treinta y Tres Orientales. These young people were helped by Father Lorenzo Massa to get land to stop playing soccer in the street.

The first name of the club was "Los Forzosos de Almagro", but due to the disapproval of Father Massa, the name San Lorenzo was decided. “De almagro” comes from the fact that the majority of young people lived there. Its stadium was built on Avenida La Plata and Inclán and due to its shape it was called El gasómetro. After many football victories, in 1979 it began to be dismantled and a shopping center was built in its place. On Avenida Perito Moreno and Varela, in the Bajo Flores area, the new stadium was built, which ended up being part of the club's Sports City.

With the emergence of the pioneering group DeBoedoVengo, which on November 30, 2000 prevented the management of San Lorenzo, the possibility of the club recovering the Avenida La Plata land began to take shape.

On November 15, 2012, through the Historical Restitution Law promoted by Adolfo Res together with the San Lorenzo Fan Subcommittee, the club began the definitive "return to Boedo."

Since October 24, 2016, San Lorenzo de Almagro has used the Roberto Pando Sports Center, with capacity for 2,500 people, located in a sector of the Old Gasómetro. The basketball team, champion of the 2015/2016 National League, plays on this current property. The first representatives of futsal and volleyball, both male and female, also perform there.

Numerous media outlets published y#34;the return y#34; from Ciclón to his old neighborhood.