Buenos Aires is very much unlike our American cities. In the first place there are no skyscrapers that lift their lofty roofs upward. The highest building does not exceed six or seven stories in height. Then there are miles upon miles of streets with buildings of one story predominating. It is laid out in rectangular blocks, averaging about four hundred feet on each side. The streets are narrow, and even in the residence sections they are generally built clear up to the street line. These narrow streets are a relic of the old days when this city was small and dormant. Narrow thoroughfares then meant shaded walks, but shade at that time was a more valuable asset than it is now in a hustling city. The principal business streets, such as Florida, Cuyo, Cangallo, Bartolomé Mitre, San Martin, 25th of May, etc., are only thirty-three feet wide, and you will wonder how the traffic is managed. It is done in this wise. Street cars and vehicles are only allowed to move one way. On the adjoining street they will move in the opposite direction. It is surprising how this plan helps to solve a serious problem of congestion. Cabs and automobiles dash along with seeming disregard of human life, and yet few accidents result. A uniformed policeman is stationed at each street intersection where traffic is congested, and assists in the protection of foot passengers and drivers. This police force made up of men with Indian blood in their veins impresses the visitor as most efficient. There is now a law in effect that no street shall be opened up in the future that is less than sixty feet in width.
“THE BROAD AND IMPOSING AVENIDA DE MAYO”
THE AVENIDA ALVEAR
There is one exception to the narrow streets, and that is the broad and imposing Avenida de Mayo, near the centre of the city. This street, with its wide pavements and rows of trees, lined on either side by hotels, fine stores and office buildings, reminds one of the famous avenues of Paris. The open-air cafés, which line the broad sidewalks of this avenue, only emphasize this resemblance and testify to the fact that the old-world spirit is still alive in Buenos Aires. At one end of the street is the Plaza de Mayo, at the far side of which is the government building in which are the administration offices; and at the other terminus, a mile away, is the Palace of Congress, which has just been completed after thirteen years of building, and at a cost of eight million dollars. With its great dome it gives a prospect very much like that of the Capitol at the end of Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. The cross streets all begin and end at Calle Rivadavia, just one block from this avenue, for they have a different name on the two ends. One of the streets in the city is called Estados Unidos, which is the Spanish for United States. The Avenida Alvear, which leads out to Palermo, is another striking street. The mansions which line it are interspersed with gardens and plazas, and this broad avenue gains in beauty by this wealth of verdure and flowers.
The people of this southern metropolis may put off until “to-morrow” many things, after the manner of the Spanish people, but they do not idle to-day. Everywhere it is work, work, work, and the people earn their bread by the actual sweat of the brow. That is, all except the wealthy estancieros, or plantation owners, who became wealthy by the marvellous rise in the value of their lands. Many men bought a square league of pampa land fifteen or twenty years ago for a few thousand dollars, and it is now worth fifty dollars an acre. This enables them to live in Buenos Aires in idleness and comparative luxury. Greater opportunities, another climate and the virgin soil have instilled a new life into bodies and brains. It is a mingling of the spirit of the old world and the new which shapes the daily life of this city. The term “effete,” so often applied to Latin nations, and the “proverbial laziness” of Spaniard and Italian, so often referred to by writers, does not apply here. From the shipping sections where boats, barges and tugs throng in endless procession, from the flats on the river where hundreds of acres have been reclaimed in recent years, to the business section and the wide tree-planted avenues where the electric cars rush out into the residence section, the traveller will observe nothing but movement and effort, unceasing work and activity. In fact, were it not for the difference in architecture, a warmer shade in the complexion of the people, the sonorous consonants of the Castilian tongue, and the fact that the passer-by who jostles you never fails to lift his hat and apologize, the traveller might imagine himself in some unfamiliar part of New York or Philadelphia. There are the same workmen laying asphalt streets, the same gangs of builders and labourers tearing down buildings and laying foundations for great business structures, or demolishing rows of houses to make way for new avenues or squares. Everywhere the city is expanding. It already covers an area four times as large as Manhattan Island, three times larger than Berlin and more than twice that of Paris.
The Spanish people love the beautiful, and that same trait is observed in Argentina. There are many beautiful plazas in Buenos Aires, as well as several free public parks and gardens. In all there are seventy-two of these artistic recreation spaces where the “good airs” of the city can be enjoyed by the population. The finest park is magnificent Palmermo with its rich vegetation, which is a half-hour’s ride from the centre of the city. This park is a breathing-place and recreation-ground of which any city might be proud. Although it is below the tropics, yet some species of the palm thrive here, and the vegetation is more luxuriant and much different from that of the latitude of New York or Chicago. The principal sporting and play grounds are all near this park. Through it runs a broad boulevard which leads out to Belgrano, the fashionable suburb of the capital. In this suburb, as well as in the city proper, there are many magnificent private homes, which are veritable palaces. In the older part of the city the courtyard, or patio, so typical of Spanish architecture, may be seen. The glimpse of the foliage and blossom that it reveals is decidedly refreshing. In the later buildings, sad to say, the patio has disappeared, for the increased value of space seems to forbid this luxury. The network of bars at the windows has likewise vanished.
ONE OF THE PALATIAL HOMES OF BUENOS AIRES