Galería Boston: Overlooked modernism and empanadas in the middle of Downtown
Text and photos by Nadin PetronePorteños avoid Florida Street. Unless it is strictly necessary to walk there, we prefer alternative routes. Closed to vehicles since 1971, it is the city's most well-known pedestrian street. For decades, it was the most elegant and frequented, so much so that it was home to Harrods' first and only branch.
In its little more than 1 kilometer length, the "City Porteña" (the financial and institutional center of the city) overlaps with the nearby historic district. Travelers eager to get to know this traditionally touristy area intermingle with the residents, mostly office employees who work there and take it for granted.
Before the proliferation of shopping malls at the end of the '80s, the favored places to shop for porteños were the major avenues or this pedestrian street.
The relative tranquility of a street without cars is interrupted by dozens of "Arbolitos," or little trees, a folkloric name for the unofficial money changers of foreign currencies (a technically illegal service called out to those passing by in a loud voice). Down the middle of the pedestrian street, there are several kiosks selling newspapers and magazines, where printed publications are scarce, and instead, posters of Messi or Pope Francis, our top celebrities for export, are sold.
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My go-to place on Florida Street is the Galería Boston. As in many other old commercial galleries nearby, time stopped over 50 years ago. Some entrances are camouflaged among the more flashy windows of neighboring stores, leaving these large spaces forgotten, which penetrate the blocks and used to be populated by various stores. Just in the kilometer that the pedestrian street covers, there are 17 galleries and many more in the surrounding streets.
Just a few meters away, nearly right across the street, is the undisputed star of the block: the famous Galería Güemes, which astounds with its Art Nouveau style and its marble and bronze from the beginning of the twentieth century. In addition to its purely architectural attraction, it has the added flavor of a picturesque and somewhat improbable anecdote: it was the home of the writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and his pet, a seal pup that lived in the bathtub of his apartment.
In contrast, the Galería Boston, with its more modest charms, has yet to be discovered by many. Almost all of the interchangeable characters on the grooved letter-board at the entrance have fallen off. This board once displayed the stores' names on each of its three levels. Today, most of them have been vacant for years and nothing seems very inviting to passers-by.
It was inaugurated in the early 1960s, and its most valuable attribute, consisting of three large murals with figures in low relief, goes unnoticed. The author is a multifaceted Argentine artist named Héctor Julio Páride Bernabó, known as "Carybé," a nickname he picked up in Brazil, where he was more prolific and recognized than in his homeland.
As an analogy with the DNA of the City of Buenos Aires, "La Güemes," reminiscent of European constructions, coexists with "La Boston," which, despite its Saxon name and its modern architecture, celebrates the Latin American essence on its walls.
Despite its artistic heritage, many visit the Galería Boston for some highly praised empanadas made using a recipe from the province of Catamarca. La Cocina is located on the central floor and has long ceased to be an open secret among workers in the area, thanks in part to the renewed boom of vintage bars and cafés on social media.
Compared to other empanada spots, La Cocina's selection of flavors is regional and therefore limited, but they say that those who try them never want to eat different ones again.
It is noon sharp, and before all of the regulars line up, I order the legendary "Pikachu", an empanada created exclusively in-house. It combines cheese and sweet and sour onion with a spicy touch and is served on a stainless steel plate. One can enjoy them on tables distributed in the corridor, forming a central hall with balconies that overlooks and visualizes all the gallery floors.
For a moment, as the tables and the entrance to the local begin to be filled, the gallery recovers its authenticity, and the comparison with the shopping malls is inevitable, the perpetrators of its sentence to an eternal commercial limbo.
The shopping mall is the "non-place" par excellence. At least it was back in 1992 when the French anthropologist Marc Augé coined this term in a book called "Non-places" to describe urban spaces without identity, without links between people wandering around to help define them.
Going beyond this anthropological lens that may sound outdated, it is true that, at first glance, shopping malls are very similar worldwide. They have conquered us with their extensive, hyper-lit walkways, soaring glass ceilings, and the spatial integration of multiple levels connected by escalators and transparent elevators. The spotless windows are both meticulously designed and highly aspirational.
In these shopping malls, what prevails is the abstraction of the street, its smells, its noises, its climate. They are a refuge in our city, and when we find ourselves in unfamiliar cities, we feel safe in the familiarity of these "spaces of anonymity," as Augé called them.
As a more recent phenomenon of globalization, we are experiencing a proliferation of culinary markets, which in their quest to become a massive tourist attractions, left aside most of their traditional stalls to be replaced by more fashionable offerings. Centennial buildings like the San Telmo Market have remained merely a shell and adopted a cosmopolitan appearance inside. The market had long since departed from its original design. Instead of supplying necessities, it was full of antique shops, which is what the neighborhood has become known for as a tourist attraction. Maybe after a few years, the new generations will also perceive this new approach as authentic.
Fortunately, gentrification did not occur in many old commercial galleries, perhaps because their structure remained unchanged despite the constant mutation brought about by contemporary mercantile trends. The price to pay is that this typology became virtually obsolete.
In its times of splendor (between the 1950s and 1980s), several of the characteristics of these galleries that still attract me today were the rule. Friezes, murals, and sculptures distinguished the bare, unadorned walls typical of modernism. The floors with marble carvings or designs made with the "terrazzo" technique, the vaulted ceilings, the labyrinthine corridors, and the stained glass windows with the store's name painted with a brush were commonplace.
Nowadays, what unites them is the large number of empty stores and the low number of visitors. Duality has become their essence; they are, first and foremost, ambiguous places, ugly but beautiful at the same time. They were full of life in the past, but would they be as fascinating today if they were updated?
If the characteristics that make a place unique are constructed mainly by the people who interact with and within it, we are faced with a desolate identity. People are not far away. They walk a few meters away, ignoring everything. What was once an extension of street commerce, a walkway sheltered from the rain or even a social meeting point, is invisible.
Strolling through these deserted corridors is not for the modest; the curious glances of the owners or employees of the locals fix on you, not fully understanding the reason for your visit. This happens especially if you wander contemplatively without looking for a particular destination.
That is why, more than the people who frequent them, their character is defined by the ruins of abandoned stores. Also by the few that, bastions of the customs of other times, continue to operate there for decades: locksmiths, hairdressers, dressmakers, small eateries and cafes, upholsterers, electrical appliance technicians and even law firms or travel agencies.
Two worlds run parallel but antagonistic, primitive businesses coexist with others that have recent tenants, who feel at ease with the discretion and low rent offered by the galleries. Some of them are even occupied by industries that did not even exist when they opened their doors, such as delivery centers for goods sold online, supplies for cannabis cultivation or exchange houses that operate with cryptocurrencies.
Several minutes went by following the peak rush hour at La Cocina, and the office workers slowly returned to their tasks. The Galería Boston resumed its usual stillness, to which it has been condemned to for so many years that few remember it unless they are craving a tasty plate of empanadas. Not all galleries are lucky enough to have so many visitors, no matter how fleeting. The lucky ones are like that grandmother who lives alone in her childhood home and is rejuvenated with every human interaction, no matter how sporadic.
I am still determining what the future of galerías holds. I can't imagine them being repurposed for a more relevant use to heed to the current needs of amusement and commerce. Instead, stripped of all their commercial value and filled with symbolic value, they are museums that house an enthralling artistic and cultural heritage that is ready to be rediscovered.
I do not want them to disappear, nor do I want them to be transformed. I want them to exist as tunnels of time, always open, for those who want to lose themselves in them for a while.
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Nadin Petrone works in publicity and loves all disciplines of design. She walks the city of Buenos Aires in search of hidden artwork in homes and buildings with a special eye for modernism, a heritage often unnoticed. You can find her discoveries on Instagram: Las Casitas De Nadin.
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Paul Holzman is a North American translator and musician living in Buenos Aires. He runs a poetry zine called Palometa and he can be read or heard on his blog, Lepersquint.
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