For becomes inevitably will.
But then it must also have some quirks. Chacarita, long considered a low-profile neighborhood in north-central Buenos Aires, has many.
There is the café which doubles as a photography museum and doubles as a jazz club. Two cavernous, mysteriously indistinguishable pizzerias, both opened in 1947, sit next to each other near a subway stop, serving thick-crusted slices topped with mozzarella and onions. And then, on the southwest flank of Chacarita, a cemetery houses elegant monuments to the 20th century tango legend Carlo Gardel and the pioneer aviator Jorge Newbery amidst vast fields of simply marked, working-class bass. She plays a good second violin Recoleta Cemeteryone of Argentina’s top 10 tourist attractions and home to the pantheon of the country’s revered former first lady, Eva Perón.
Just 10 metro stops from Obelisk downtown – recently increased rate to 125 pesos is still less than 15 US cents even at the official market rate of 878 Argentine pesos to the dollar – totally walkable Chacarita is a really great place to shop, eat and just walk around for a few days, which I did earlier this year, both alone and with my (then) 19-year-old nephew, Leo, who was studying, or more accurately, “studying,” in Argentina.
Irresistible shops
Chacarita, meaning “small farm,” is so called because its land once served as a vegetable garden and recreational place for Jesuit school students. It eventually became a transportation hub and working-class neighborhood, about 100 square blocks. I was absolutely enchanted by Chacarita’s cobbled streets, lined with colonial-style single-family homes with interjections of Art Deco and Brutalism. They were the exact opposite of the monotony of the late-game Monopoly board, with heavy wooden doors with old mail slots labeled “LETTERS” and wrought-iron window guards framing the faces of variously curious and agitated dogs and cats. infrequent passers-by. .
While many commercial streets still have a working-class feel, Jorge Newbery Avenue does not. The street, named after the aviator, is a hipster center of gravity, with shops, cafes, vermouth bars and a vegan restaurant. Donnetoffers a tasting menu for around 19,000 pesos per person that revolves almost entirely around mushrooms.
Many Newbery stores are irresistible. What I thought was a bakery because the name means Pastry Chef’s Boutique, The pastry chef’s pharmacy it turned out to be a delightfully gigantic baking supply store, selling artistic marble cutting boards, creative cookie cutters, and lots of utensils.
Even though La Botica is every baker’s dream, Facon he is a tourist. The shop’s owner, Martín Bustamante, has decided to demonstrate that Argentina is much more than Buenos Aires (and the vineyards of Mendoza and the penguins of Patagonia), offering items from local masters and some high-design items. For 60,000 pesos, I brought home a soulful yet playful scarlet-red wooden horse with a thin mane, created by Juan Gelosiartist from the north-central province of Tucumán.
(Others will want to stop at Falena, a busy bookstore and wine bar hidden behind brick walls and an ancient-looking wooden door. Alas, it was closed for holidays when I was in town.)
Slightly more hidden spots dot the side streets. I wandered through the open doors of a department store run by LABA, an artistic and cultural center. Inside I found young people acting in Vitruvian style, rolling around inside large wheels. It was a lesson in what is known in Spanish as a “German wheel,” but which we know (as far as we know) as wheel gymnastics.
In one corner, I glimpsed through ground-floor windows into a basement filled floor-to-ceiling with racks of used clothing. Had I discovered some sort of vintage speakeasy shop?
No. After rudely peeking out the window to get someone’s attention, I was told that it was a company that rented costumes for film productions. Down another block, I saw a poster for a company called Fina Estampa that, when I looked it up on Instagram, turned out to be a printmaking workshop that taught classes and housed a tiny shop, open only on Tuesdays. Good luck, it was Tuesday! And a print of a gin and tonic in a glass – which also happens to be a small swimming pool -now it adorns my wall at home.
Burnt onions and dulce de leche
The old-fashioned side of Chacarita is worth wandering around, for its simpler atmosphere and cheaper meals. Santa Maria’s slice of fugazzetta, topped with mozzarella and freshly charred onion, costs 1,600 pesos and is worth it; a churro filled with dulce de leche Olleros Churros Factory — he’s about 60 and looks his age — he’s only 350. But I especially liked the steak and fries lunch, which cost 3,400 pesos, at Colonia 10 de Julio, the kind of place where the floor looks dirty even after it has just been washed.
I only went to one place twice, the bar-museum of photography jazz club called both Bar Palacio and the Simik Photographic Museum. On an afternoon visit, I peered into the closets filled with antique chambers, and then ordered coffee and a traditional dessert of sweet potatoes and cheese from a table that served as the base of a Durst M605 photographic enlarger, a giant photography machine. the kind previously seen only in the mysterious red light of 20th century darkrooms. The next day, I returned with Leo and some friends to listen to the jazz between Kodak Instamatics older than me and daguerreotype machines older than any person alive today.
My dinners in Chacarita were a bit inconsistent: the first evening Leo and I were rejected by a newly opened artisan pizzeria called Culpina. The owner would take out delicious looking little cakes from the stone oven, but only for family and friends. So we crowded into the last remaining table on the sidewalk Siphon, a place named after reusable seltzer siphons that to a New Yorker look like something from the Tenement Museum but are still widely used throughout Buenos Aires for adding your spritz to wine-based drinks like tinto de Verano. This was the best part of our meal, which consisted of rather mediocre polenta and arancini.
Our best dinner was at Lardito, a legitimately advertised place with a small-plates, globe-trotting vibe. At communal tables decorated with lavender and white wildflowers, Leo and I ate beef tataki (thin slices of lightly seared sirloin with oyster vinaigrette and topped with egg yolk and cauliflower foam) and ceviche for 45,000 pesos. The price does not include wine, which diners choose from the restaurant’s mini wine shop, perfect for those who are better at selecting interesting labels rather than obscure grapes.
Battle against the developers
But there were plenty of signs that the neighborhood may already be on the road to post-hipster glass-and-steel condos—literal signs. Dozens of “NO AL NUEVO CÓDIGO URBANÍSTICO” (“No to the new zoning code”) posters are hanging on residences to protest a 2018 zoning code overhaul that has facilitated, among other things, the construction of condominiums in the neighborhoods residential.
On my last morning I met María Sol Azcona and Laura Nowydwor, two women from the organization, Environmental protection of Chacarita, which, roughly translated, means “Protecting the environment of Chacarita”. We met at a posh bar, which they were quick to point out was overpriced and full of foreigners.
Hearing them detail their battle against real estate developers was both promising – they helped introduce new legislation last year that would roll back the 2018 code – and depressing. The couple showed me how easy it was to use the city ones 3D online application to research which blocks in the neighborhood were ripe and legal for construction.
Ms. Nowydwor, who studied geography at the University of Buenos Aires, has mapped 300 construction projects in the neighborhood, including 15 homes that have been demolished. Real estate developers joined tourists on the wandering residential streets.
“You see them walking around, ringing doorbells,” Ms. Nowydwor said, “telling residents ‘We’ll pay you three million dollars’ for a 150-square-meter property,” the equivalent of about 1,600 square feet. “Then they build 40 apartments and sell them for $200,000 each.” (Properties in Buenos Aires are often sold for cash in US dollars.)
Luckily they didn’t throw me and the other visitors under the bus.
“The problem is not tourism in and of itself,” Ms. Azcona said. “The fact is that much of the city is designed and planned for the good of businesses. And tourism is a kind of business.”
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