Abandoned buildings in Buenos Aires, and the past stories they hold

Jeff Barry, over at at Buenos Aires, City of Faded Elegance, one of my favorite blogs about my adopted city, recently started what should be a very interesting series of posts about deteriorating and abandoned buildings in Buenos Aires.

He started the series with a post about an abandoned building on calle Bolivar in the barrio of Barracas, and tells an interesting story about the lives that would have once been led in crumbling buildings like these. It really is this type of deteriorating building and the stories within that gives a city like Buenos Aires authenticity and an interesting edge – we would be far worse off without these reminders of days gone by.

Jeff then invited other bloggers to join in the series by posting their own pictures of abandoned or deteriorating buildings in Buenos Aires, or indeed anywhere else. So far, Tango Cherie is the only Buenos Aires blogger to step up to the plate, with her post on run-down buildings in Havana, Cuba, that are in fact still very much lived in, despite their state of disrepair.

I decided to join in with the series, so here is my photo entry:

Abandoned building on calle Alsina, Monserrat

This building is found on the 400 block of Alsina, just across the street from one of my favorite old cafes in Buenos Aires, La Puerto Rico (great coffee and pastries by the way – review coming soon). It is also just a block away from Plaza de Mayo, so you would imagine it would be a prime location. However, despite that, I think it has been in more or less the same condition the two years I have lived so far in Buenos Aires, the only changes being the extra foliage growing on its walls, the changing state of its crumbling old facade, and the different fly posters that adorn its boardings each week.

Some similar buildings further down the block (on the corner opposite the lovely old Farmacia de Las Estrellas and above that the Buenos Aires city museum) have a sign on them indicating that the Buenos Aires city government is planning to renovate them and create shop space on the ground floors – however it seems that the separate building shown in my photo might be ignored for a while yet. We’ll see…

I hope that you all enjoyed my entry in this blog post series. Thanks for the great idea Jeff!