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BUENOS AIRES ARTICLESBuenos Aires: city where passions run high The Sunday Times: August 6, 2006
Maybe you can gauge a city's soul from those it chooses to worship. Buenos Aires has three eternal heroes, whose ranking fluctuates according to fashion and caprice.
Looking up at that balcony and across at the marching Mothers, you get a pithy impression of Argentina's bitter passions.
TRAVEL: A day in Buenos Aires Financial Times: January 13, 2007
So disparate are the city's districts in their architecture and their atmosphere that getting a true taste of BA in 24 hours requires stamina and a strong taxi-hailing arm. We are recommending a busy day that will take you across four neighbourhoods.
Optic Overload in Buenos Aires Detroit Free Press: January 6, 2008 By Mauricio Gutierrez
Hand-painted signs. High-octane color. Heavy golden doors. As a professional graphic designer, I look for the visual identity of a city whenever I travel. Some places have very little, while others have a very cohesive look. Buenos Aires is one of the latter. Porteños, as the residents of Buenos Aires are known, have an acute sense of color and typography. If you are visually inclined, you can narrow your attention to four areas. San Telmo: The once-prosperous neighborhood is again on the upswing, with many new bars, restaurants and boutique hotels like the Cocker (thecocker.com) and Gurda (gurdahotel.com), as well as Axel, the first gay luxury hotel in the city (axelhotels.com/en/).I made this neighborhood my base at the Ribera Sur Hotel (riberasurhotel.com.ar), which has a minimalist aesthetic and a high attention to service, an oasis of interior design in this otherwise rough-around-the-edges area. During the weekends, the streets around the main square, Plaza Dorrego, turn into an open-air art fair and antiques market, a great way to see many examples of hand-painted signs, many with a great sense of color and typography. This style has its own name: fileteados porteños. Its very distinctive use of ornaments and illustrations make it stand out visually from other cities in the world. La Boca: For a high-octane use of color, head to La Boca, home of the Boca Juniors Club soccer team. The neighborhood's tenements-turned-artists' lofts, have their facades painted in vibrant, happy colors that may make you forget you're in the middle of one of the poorest -- and a bit dangerous -- neighborhoods in the city. Plaza de Mayo: If there was any doubt of how daring Argentineans are with color, stroll around the Plaza de Mayo to Casa Rosada, the presidential residence. It is painted in a soft shade of pink, a lot more daring than the safe white of the White House. Walk around it and you will see the balcony from which the infamous Evita gave her speeches. Palermo: Head out to Palermo, home to a myriad of restaurants that not only will satisfy your stomach but your eyes. Most places are very well designed, in styles from Scandinavian minimalism at Olsen to warm rich reds and heavy golden doors at Casa Cruz. Whichever you choose, make sure you make late reservations; show up at 8.30 p.m. and you might as well eat by yourself.
Palermo is also a great place to buy locally designed leather goods and clothes. And design-conscious people will feel heavenly as soon as they step into Papelería Palermo, a paper supply store selling handcrafted papers and hand-bound notebooks as well as art supplies and books.
Don't leave without buying at least a notebook with Eva Perón's face on the cover--simply the best souvenir of the city.
The New York Times: February 4, 2007 By Ian Mount
"IT is better to look good than to feel good," the Argentine actor Fernando Lamas once remarked. He could have been talking about Buenos Aires after its 2002 peso crisis. The financial meltdown emasculated the Argentine economy, but it also made Buenos Aires, the expensive cosmopolitan capital, an attractive and suddenly affordable destination. Now largely recovered from "La Crisis," the city is being energized by an influx of tourists, expatriates and returning Argentine ?migr?s, and its glamorous night life and conspicuous consumption have reached a fever pitch. While inflation is now reappearing, Buenos Aires, at least for the moment, not only looks good but feels that way too.
Friday
2 p.m.
For a fascinating peek into Buenos Aires's history, start at El Zanjón de Granados (Defensa 755; 54-11-4361-3002), a 175-year-old mansion that leads to a series of underground tunnels that go back to the city's early settlements. (The city was founded in 1536.) Now a museum, El Zanjón offers intriguing one-hour tours (20 pesos, or about $6.30 at 3.16 pesos to the dollar) through a cross section of the city's archaeological layers.
4 p.m.
Explore present-day Buenos Aires in the cobblestoned district of San Telmo. While best known for its weekend antiques market, the neighborhood now has plenty of cool shops and restaurants. The ice cream parlor Nonna Bianca (Estados Unidos 407; 54-11-4362-0604) balances rustic Patagonian d?cor with adventurous flavors like kumquats in whiskey (small cone: 3 pesos). San Telmo is also home to a growing gallery scene including the swank Wussman Gallery (Venezuela 574; 54-11-4343-4707; www.wussmann.com) and Appetite (Chacabuco 551; 54-9-11-6112-9975; www.appetite.com.ar), which specializes in punk-rock-style art.
9:30 p.m.
More than a third of Argentina's population is of Italian descent, and Guido's Bar (República de la India 2843; 54-11-4802-2391) fulfills all the Little Italy tropes, from Volare on the stereo to the New York City skyline on the ceiling. But the crowd is Argentine and the food is varied and tasty. There is no menu and after one question - "Red or white?" - the waiters bring a seemingly random assortment of plates, like a cold appetizer of spinach and red bell peppers in a paprika mayonnaise sauce, followed by Spanish tortillas, stuffed eggplants, penne in red sauce and pignoli nuts. How the waiter figures your bill (45 to 60 pesos a person) remains a mystery.
11:45 p.m.
The spirit of Carlos Gardel, the godfather of Argentine tango, lives on in the Almagro neighborhood, where Bar 12 de Octubre (Bulnes 331; 54-11-4862-0415; www.barderoberto.com.ar) offers weekly music shows. Started in the mid-90s when the famed tangoist Roberto Medina stopped in to play a few songs, the shows run Tuesday to Friday nights between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. Arrive early to get a good spot, before the crowds of tattooed 20- and 30-somethings jam the tiny, grungy space.
Saturday
11 a.m.
With its prime location and literary clientele that included Jorge Luis Borges, Café Tortoni (Avenida de Mayo 825; 54-11-4342-4328; www.cafetortoni.com.ar) is the most famous of the cafes from Buenos Aires's belle epoque. But more magnificent is Las Violetas (Avenida Rivadavia 3899; 54-11-4958-7387; www.lasvioletas.com), a 123-year-old French-style cafe. After closing briefly in the late 1990s, Las Violetas's interior, including its gorgeous stained glass, has been restored. The white-jacketed waiters serve the classic breakfast of café con leche with three croissants (5.40 pesos), but the shocker of the menu is the María Cala tea service, an eye-popping pile of cakes, scones, finger sandwiches and pan dulce pastries (29 pesos for three people).
1 p.m.
To most visitors, the Recoleta Cemetery in the upscale Recoleta district (intersection of Junín and Guido) is known as the place where Eva Per?n's body is buried. But the graveyard is also the final home of several presidents, scientists and other influential Argentines. Urban Explorer (54-11-4813-0385; www.urbex.com.ar) offers a history-filled recorded tour through the Art Nouveau, Art Deco and Modernist-style mausoleums ($20 for 90 minutes). Highlights include the tomb of Luis ?ngel Firpo, an Argentine heavyweight who once knocked Jack Dempsey out of the ring.
3 p.m.
To marvel at Argentina's longtime obsession with horses, head to the Hipódromo Argentino de Palermo (Avenida del Libertador 4101; 54-11-4778-2800; www.palermo.com.ar; entrance fee 5 pesos). Opened in 1876, the elegant racetrack has a French neo-Classical grandstand, the Confitería París restaurant and a basement casino. For up-close action, sit at the wooden tables that dot the flowery lawn. There are 10 race days a month.
7 p.m.
Malba, short for Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, is considered to have one of the finest Latin American art collections in the world (Alcorta 3415; 54-11-4808-6500; www.malba.org.ar; entrance fee 12 pesos). In addition to a permanent collection that includes Frida Kahlo, Xul Solar, Diego Rivera and Guillermo Kuitca, the cavernous museum has also had traveling shows by Lichtenstein, Stella and Warhol. Afterward, head next door to the Museo Renault (Alcorta 3399; 54-11-4802-9626; www.mrenault.com.ar) for one of the city's best martinis and one of the city's weirder new trends: car-branded bars. Audi, Ferrari, Maserati and Mini Cooper have opened up their own boites nearby.
10 p.m.
In the shopping-friendly district of Palermo Soho, La Cabrera (Cabrera 5099; 54-11-4831-7002) is a French bistro that takes Argentina's amazing steaks in a new direction. The chef, Gastón Rivera, serves classic beef cuts like juicy ojo de bife (30.50 pesos), but serves it alongside an impressive array of untraditional side dishes including mashed pumpkin with raisins, beet pure and baked pearl onions in red wine. Arrive early to take advantage of the free champagne at the sidewalk waiting area, while you listen to tango-themed electronica music and watch the beautiful crowd of jet-setting locals and trendy visitors.
12 a.m.
If you're looking to dance, head to the consistently trendy Niceto Club (Niceto Vega 5510; 54-11-4779-9396; www.nicetoclub.com), a multistory venue on an industrial strip lined with auto repair shops. Local bands like Los Alamos and the French Kid Loco play before midnight; afterward, D.J.'s play psychedelic trance and dance music. The crowd peaks around 3 a.m. If you prefer places that get going before 1 a.m., head to Mundo Bizarro (Serrano 1222; 54-11-4773-1967; www.mundobizarrobar.com), a night-life mainstay decorated with 50s pinup posters and a stripper pole. For other hot clubs, check out WhatsUpBuenosAires.com (bilingual) and BuenosAliens.com (Spanish).
Sunday
10 a.m
For a break from the careering colectivo buses and bumblebee-colored cabs, go to Parque Tres de Febrero (also known as the Bosques de Palermo) on the city's northern edge. The 965-acre park fills on weekends with runners, cyclists, sun worshipers and the odd club kid unwilling to let Saturday end. Stroll past the placid lake, the whiffle ball-shaped planetarium and the Rosedal garden, which has about 12,000 roses. Those club kids are heading to Arkos (Avenida Casares and Avenida Sarmiento; 54-11-4804-2512; www.clubarkos.com.ar) an after-hours party inside the park that starts Sundays at 7 a.m.
Sunday brunch at Olsen (Gorriti 5870; 54-11-4776-7677; prix fix, with champagne, 27 to 39 pesos) has become a mainstay of expatriates, filmmakers and wealthy Argentines by offering two Buenos Aires rarities: brunch and ethnic food. The d?cor is pure Scandinavia, with curvy plywood furniture and 60 types of vodkas. Dishes include herring and smoked salmon with Argentine bondiola (pork tenderloin). Call ahead to get an outdoor table on the heated deck, or on the couches around the fireplace (avoid the frenetic tables near the kitchen). In a concession to Argentines' overheated night life, brunch goes on until 8 p.m.
The Basics
Many major American and Latin American airlines fly to Ezeiza International Airport near Buenos Aires from Kennedy Airport in New York. A recent Web search showed round-trip fares starting at around $900. The 20-mile taxi ride to the city's center runs about 60 pesos.
The Art Hotel (Azcuenaga 1268; 54-11-4821-4744; www.arthotel.com.ar), opened in 2004, was among the city's first boutique hotels. The 36 rooms are housed above an art gallery in exclusive Recoleta. Room rates, quoted in United States dollars, start at $65.
The Scandinavian-style Home Hotel (Honduras 5860; 54-11-4778-1008; www.homebuenosaires.com) has become a de rigueur stop for the Wallpaper* magazine set and the place where the rock groups U2 and Franz Ferdinand held concert after-parties. On summer Fridays, Tom Rixton, a co-owner and English record producer, spins what he calls "stupid party music for girls to dance to." The 18 rooms start at $115.
Palacio Duhau-Park Hyatt Buenos Aires (Avenida Alvear 1661; 54-11-5171-1234; www.buenosaires.park.hyatt.com), opened in July 2006, has 164 rooms split between the renovated 1934 Duhau family mansion and a recent wing. Rooms start at around $370. Making the Most of Those Argentine Nights The New York Times: February 4, 2007 By Matt Gross
Very late one Wednesday night in November, Calle Balcarce was deserted. By day this street in San Telmo - the quintessential "old Buenos Aires" neighborhood - would have hummed with pedestrians enjoying the warmth of late spring, but now the stone and concrete buildings glowed lonely yellow under the street lamps. Even my destination, a club called X Vos, looked abandoned; only a pair of smokers killing time on the sidewalk hinted that anything might be happening inside.
Within the club's brick and black-painted walls, however, a free-for-all was getting under way. The D.J., Villa Diamante, was spinning hip-hop and reggaet?n, video graphics swirled faintly on a wall (I caught images from "2001: A Space Odyssey"), and a hundred or so clubgoers in jeans, T-shirts and hoodies were downing cheap beers and whiskey nacional in preparation for the evening's "cumbia experimental," an electronicized version of a type of folk music popular in the city's villas, or slums.
Soon, the real party - the weekly performance known as Zizek - began. A corn-rowed guy took the stage and, over the cumbia's ch-ch-ch rhythms, began spouting dancehall lyrics in Spanish, while behind him a boy of about 10 carefully strummed chords on a guitar about as long as he was tall. Suddenly a big dude grabbed the microphone and - how do I put this? - squawk-squealed into it for several minutes. The crowd surged every time a singer chanted the refrain "Cumbia-a-a!" No wonder Clar?n, Argentina's largest newspaper, had nominated Zizek as one of the best parties of the year - it was awesome.
But Zizek - named for the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, who is married to a young Argentine model and once taught at the University of Buenos Aires - was only the finale of a phenomenally busy but typical Wednesday in Argentina's capital.
At midnight, I'd been eating dinner - rich morcilla gnocchi flecked with crunchy Granny Smith apple - with fashion designers and artists at Casa Cruz, an ultrachic restaurant paneled in gleaming mahogany. A few hours earlier, there were cocktails poolside at the Faena Hotel + Universe, designed by Philippe Starck. I'd spent the afternoon gallery hopping, had an espresso at the contemporary Latin American art museum and met the writer Washington Cucurto, Argentina's answer to Dave Eggers, at the workshop where he transforms used cardboard into hand-painted book covers for his independent publishing house, Elo?sa Cartonera. And somewhere in there, I'd found time for a quick nap at the enormous bilevel loft I'd rented in the fashionable Recoleta neighborhood.
If this sounds exhausting, it was. But it was also exhilarating, affordable (thanks to the lingering effects of Argentina's economic crisis five years ago) and accessible. In fact, the only difficulty I'd faced in all of this was deciding which of the night's dozens of events to forgo - in the end, I couldn't make it to a friend's party at El Diamante, a Mexican-kitsch tapas restaurant designed by the artist Sergio de Loof.
Such are the challenges vexing any visitor to today's Buenos Aires: electrotango or art opening, design festival or indie theater, a chichi martini and exquisite cut of grilled meat or a simple beer at a grimy bar (followed by an exquisite cut of grilled meat). But since the average Argentine evening extends into the dawn, there's often time - if you have the stamina - to do it all.
Still, any decision process must begin with a fundamental choice - where do you establish home base? For visitors in search of the next cool thing, two options present themselves, Puerto Madero and Palermo.
Puerto Madero, connected to downtown by a quartet of bridges, was once the city's cargo terminal, where trains from the countryside would arrive bearing grain, beef and wine for export. But for more than 20 years, the forces of urban renewal have been at work. Today the long, broad avenues of Puerto Madero bear only a few traces of the neighborhood's industrial past. The gantry cranes that once lifted containers onto ships now stand guard over antiseptic plazas like anime robots; residential skyscrapers front the boardwalk where street venders grill steak sandwiches (and sell them for 4 pesos, about $1.30 at 3.1 pesos to the U.S. dollar); the sign over one construction site boasts Cesar Pelli as its architect; and Los Molinos, a former granary, is expected to anchor a future arts district.
Puerto Madero is also home to many of the city's high-end hotels: a Hilton, a Sofitel and the Faena Hotel + Universe. (Alan Faena is behind much of the multimillion-dollar development in Puerto Madero, and has engaged Norman Foster to do another building.) Once a red-brick warehouse, the Faena is now one of the city's most opulent lodgings, with buttoned-leather sofas, gilt touches, drooping chandeliers and lots and lots of red: carpets, curtains, lampshades, wineglasses - even the crisp bangs fringing the forehead of the Faena's creative director, Ximena Caminos, were tinted crimson. About the only non-red object in sight was the white cowboy hat on the head of Mr. Faena himself.
And yet Puerto Madero, for all its ambitions and big-name architects, remains a bit underpopulated. There is little foot traffic and none of the sense of neighborhood that elsewhere produces great boutiques, funky cafes and top restaurants. Perhaps when all the construction - including a major revamping of the downtown area across the Puente de la Mujer- is complete, Puerto Madero will come into its own. Till then, Faena devotees will probably be taking a lot of 20-peso cab rides to Palermo.
Palermo is without doubt the hippest part of Buenos Aires. Once it was a quiet residential neighborhood whose narrow cobblestone streets were lined with trees and low Spanish-style homes. But in the mid-1990s, artists, designers, architects and film producers took advantage of its affordability to set up shop - a movement that has dramatically accelerated since the 2002 economic crisis. Today, it feels like every boutique is a former bakery, every hotel a former town house and every gallery a former garage. No writer is allowed to describe Palermo without comparing it to SoHo in Manhattan or deploying the adjective "trendy." (There's even a blog, trendypalermoviejo.blogspot.com.)
Palermo boasts the city's highest concentration of boutique hotels, with what seems like one opening every month, including the Home Hotel, whose Scandinavian furniture and iPod connections enticed George W. Bush's twin daughters to check in to one of its 14 rooms and three suites in November.
But I didn't stay at any of these places. Instead, I turned to Apartmentsba.com, a rental agency with hundreds of apartments across Buenos Aires, and found an 11th-floor loft in Recoleta, a tony neighborhood midway between Palermo and Puerto Madero. For $600 a week, I had windows that stretched 16 feet to the ceiling, a big soft bed, glitch-free wireless Internet and even concierge services. Outside, glorious belle epoque apartment buildings glittered in the warm sun, and jacaranda trees spread over the avenues, their fractal branches ending in inky lavender blooms.
Not too shabby - but still, I spent little time in Recoleta. Soon after my breakfast of medialunas (a type of Argentine croissant) and a cortado (espresso with a little milk) at the sunny cafe across the street, I'd catch a cab to Palermo, where I'd meet a friend for chocolate brioche at Mark's, then go strolling the neighborhood in search of architectural treasures, like an 1877 mansion with stained-glass windows hidden down an alley and supposedly owned by a telenovela star. In between, I could pop into galleries like El Borde, where the mysterious narrow-gauge rail tracks running through the big white space almost distracted me from Arturo Aguiar's lush photos of his artist friends (very much in the style of the Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai, but maybe I'm just thinking of his Buenos Aires movie, "Happy Together").
Though Palermo may sound very commercialized - "SoHo-ized" is the term preferred by some - it is at the same time fascinating to see how the neighborhood had reinvented itself in the five years since the crisis. Those rail tracks in El Borde, the word panaderia (bakery) carved in the stone above the window of the fashion boutique Emme, even the warm, clubby atmosphere inside the Nike store's crumbly edifice - all hinted at a past not too far removed, and suggested that Palermo had undergone a relatively organic transformation.
Still, this metamorphosis has had consequences. Real estate is no longer cheap, so artier denizens have moved elsewhere. Belleza y Felicidad, an eclectic art gallery that sells the hand-painted books of Eloísa Cartonera, is in Almagro, a middle-class neighborhood south of Palermo whose cachet increases as it blends at its edges with other neighborhoods like Boedo - home of the up-and-coming neorealist theater scene - and Once, where the Ciudad Cultural Konex theater plays host to modern dance epics.
To find Appetite, an avant-garde gallery that everyone I met recommended, I had to return to one of San Telmo's less atmospheric blocks. Pop-punk exuberance is Appetite's stock in trade, its walls (and floors) are covered in a profusion of styles, from Ariel Cusnir's paintings of idealized tropical islands and Anabella Papa's witty paintings of beautiful, casual violence (schoolboys brawling, a man attacked by a wolf) to a row of blue plastic shopping bags and a paint can frozen in mid-spill atop a table.
Visiting these lesser-known corners takes a bit of effort. Taxis, which at first blush seem so fast and cheap, get caught in unexpected waves of traffic, and the Subte, or subway, so efficient at whisking people to and from the city center, is worthless if you need to go across town. Walking, while a great way to take in the architecture and vibrant street life, can tire you out, making late-night festivities a literal yawn. And if, like me, you don't speak Spanish well, it can seem pointlessly strenuous to wander outside the comfort zone of Palermo.
The rewards, however, are worth the fatigue. At Appetite, I was led around the corner to a warehouse where Mr. Cusnir and the fashion label Maison Trash were rehearsing a production of Mr. Cusnir's art - complete with sand, palm tree and big model helicopter. And in the Pan y Arte restaurant in Boedo, I ate sublime Mendoza-style cuisine - sweet-corn empanadas, lush calabaza casserole and excellent Mendoza malbec wine - in a room full of actors and directors. In each case, I felt as if I'd begun to penetrate that tricky tourist-local barrier.
What's more, I got a sense of the city's size and interconnectedness - it was more than just a few neighborhoods I'd seen in glossy magazines and coffee table books. Soon, it was unsurprising to learn, for example, that the choreographer with the lauded aerial-tango show at Konex was married to the architect who was transforming the downtown post office into a theater.
But whomever I met, wherever I went, I would always return - without much regret - to Palermo, where I would find a whiskey nacional waiting for me at Mundo Bizarro, a Los Angeles-style diner/bar, or a warm ceviche at the quasi-Japanese Dominga. And my new friends would be there, too, sipping Pink Panther cocktails under the arcing wood ceiling of Bar 6 or eating French-ish salads at the pink-painted picnic tables of Oui Oui. Even Zizek made it to Palermo; in December, the party took up residence at Niceto, one of the city's slickest clubs.
Always, though, there would come a time in those Palermo nights when I would suddenly catch myself with the realization that I'd missed Juana Chang's indie rock show or Codigo Pais, a festival of "creative tendencies" that included D.J. sets, art films, experimental technology and a tantalizing "espacio erótico." But then I would remember: There was always tomorrow night.
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