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Santiago Revisited

A story that sticks between the poplars of the Alameda invisible

always in a hurry, head down, walk the Santiago grayer than the pavement, thinking that we have no identity. But enough to raise some eyes, to discover that this corner at the foot of the mountain itself has a lot to tell.

Van more than four years since Pedro de Gamboa drew mason square spaces to the English style, until the troops of the Mapuche warrior Michimalonco ended the primitive construction of a single fire. But it had a long time to rebuild the ashes see this stubborn city, which since then has not only grown on all four sides and up, under a thick cloud of smog, and again after each earthquake.

Over time, the Plaza de Armas was no longer the center to form its story around the Glen, a bucolic stroll through poplars that people called Alameda. In the phone books of the 30 figure with the name of "Delicias". Because her first name was " Alameda de las Delicias", named at the time of Bernardo O'Higgins .

Legend has it that after the victory of Arturo Alessandri Palma in the 1920 presidential election, the holding in Alameda was so effervescent one another fan of the Lion of Tarapacá proposed putting his name to the avenue . The same legend says Alessandri then saw that it was too much honor for him and deserved only O'Higgins enter your name the main thoroughfare of the city. And so it was: the master plan calls Avenida Libertador Bernardo O'Higgins, and so the signs say in every corner. But the collective memory is stubborn, and even today, that there is not a single poplar, we still call "the Alameda."

Since the late nineteenth century began to appear called "palaces", making this tour a stately avenue. French or English imitation mansions in the most diverse styles were born resident of the oligarchy of nitrate and carbon. However, after landslides caused by earthquakes, many of these mansions of marble floor has revealed his frame stick with adobe, hidden behind the finest plaster in an anecdotal contrast. Only after 30 years began to build strong structures, enabling them to stand up today.

The city at that time grew to the Equestrian Club down the street Blanco Encalada. Traces of this remain in the Republic Avenue, where one of the neighbors was precisely the acclaimed President Alessandri Palma. And by the Alameda, the palace is occupied by Errázuriz the Brazilian embassy, \u200b\u200bwhile the Ariztía by the offices of the Chamber of Deputies. The worshipful residents were migrating to Providence and then to Apoquindo, then field, but while its buildings were reorganized into all types of commercial stands, vulgarising its aesthetics, the Alameda continued giving meaning to the rest of the city.

So says the professor of history at the University of Santiago, Luis Ortega.

Several buildings have been declared historical heritage, while others, lucky enough to have been in the midst of neighborhoods named as typical area, expect the willingness of neighbors to keep. And is that the mechanism to keep them in good condition is a system of subsidies offered by the State through the Ministry of Housing, so that citizens are interested in purchasing any of the properties that are in the renovation project, in order to breathe life into beautiful homes that otherwise would be inhabited by ghosts.

Thus was about to happen with some in the center, which were tenements before the 40's. Others, is only the facade, as is the case of the residence of President Manuel Montt, Merced street before the church.

Anyway it is a heritage to be rescued from collapse and oblivion. So I thought the Chilean photographer Italo Arriaza , who came to the rescue of these beauties with his camera.



The Alameda was always the main artery capital's transport. Today where buses carrying the white and green Transantiago plan, once was full of shelves, small buses which version gave rise to the word "micro" (the microgóndolas). With the friction of the tires, some streets have come to show the tracks that hid the poor quality pavements. Others, such as street orphans, among Matucana and Freedom, held open pit road where he passed the recorrido4, going from the Central Station the Mapocho , and 21, who started from the Plaza de Armas . Most of the routes passing through the Alameda, connecting with Los Leones (once a founded), Grand Avenue (which once had vines), and Independence, where the route was going to Negrete allows passengers to line 36 to transfer without penalty.

A reminder of this transport system provides the historian Juan Ricardo Couyoumdjian , professor at the Catholic University of Chile.





ever new generations speak to their grandchildren of the yellow buses remembered from his youth. And is that while things disappear, will persist as long as someone remembers them.

True