La Boca - Buenos Aires #2
by Richard Krebs
Title
La Boca - Buenos Aires #2
Artist
Richard Krebs
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
La Boca (“mouth” in Spanish) was once quite literally the mouth of Buenos Aires. It’s located on what used to be the city’s biggest port, where products, goods, and immigrants arrived by the shipload in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Those immigrants set up shop in the surrounding vicinity, working the docks and building homes from the scrap material leftover from ship-building. You’ll see this in the haphazard shanty houses that still line the streets here, made from sheet metal and wooden planks; in addition, nearly all of them are painted in very bright colors.The houses weren’t always quite so bright. It wasn’t until the 1960s, when local artist Benito Quinquela Martín decided to use his neighborhood as a canvas, painting one abandoned street that quickly became a meeting place for other La Boca artists. The rest of the neighborhood followed suit, and a homegrown tourist attraction was born.Today, La Boca is a presentation in contrasts. It’s still a highly working-class neighborhood; this isn’t where the city’s young and wealthy are living. Locals will tell you to avoid it at night, and even when walking the streets during daylight, you can sense the mood change on certain streets. Tourists are often targeted for pick-pocketing. But on the other hand, on weekend afternoons, the neighborhood is swarming with tourists. Many people, locals, and newcomers alike, will tell you the area is a total tourist trap, filled with overpriced eateries and pushy owners.
Uploaded
October 6th, 2023
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