Mataderos Neighborhood

Mataderos neighborhood produces fear and magnetism. Some time ago was a kind  of spectacle to visit it. For those who was not used to see cattle heads hanging in the neighborhood as if they were clothing articles, was all a diversion to attend the animals killing to obtain and to drink the cup of blood of the recently beheaded. Those were times in which was believed that the blood cured any illness.

Today those customs changed, but Mataderos remembers us those glorious times, in which the work abounded everywhere. 

The land, where the neighborhood is located today, was previously only field, gaps and clay until the year 1846 in which was constructed the first house, property of the Moyano family, in Escalada street and Del Trabajo avenue (Eva Peron avenue). Over the years and with the installation of new dwellings, happened as in every process of neighborhoods formation, the plots division and the lots of the lands. 

Its initial population were immigrants: Spanish, Portugueses and Italians, in their majority. 

Important industries were installed that gave work to all the town people. Such was the growth of the town that it was called New Chicago, to resemble it to the USA city, for its similarity and growth. 

The slaughterhouses, initially, were located in the Parque de los Patricios neighborhood, they also existed in Recoleta, Miserere, and in the nearby of the Alsina Bridge. When they moved to the neighborhood, today known as Mataderos, it changes the name for being the place destined exclusively to the cattle killing. There all the hopes of an Argentine future were located, that was consolidated in the cattle raising. 

The settling of the new Liniers Slaughterhouses was inaugurated in 1901. In that opportunity new buildings could be seen like the central building with its tower and clock, the little park surrounded by arcades and paved patios.

With the passage of time the neighborhood was transforming owing to the progress, being depopulated of salting sheds and taking care of its esthetics of all kinds of wastes in the public way. With the settling of factories, where women were employed to sew and with the possibility of making a duct to the stream, so that the overflow cause not losses, the neighborhood began to flourish. 

“...I name it and my voice trembles,

if I move away, I despair

I maintain only a love:

to my neighborhood, Mataderos”

<Milonga a Mataderos (1989)>

Interest Places:

“Museo Criollo de los Corrales” (“Corrals Native Museum”): was founded in 1963 the most important Argentine native museum. There are exposed more than 2000 pieces. There you can visit a copy of a retail store, a hearth, “The Corralera” wagon, native arrows, epoch houses, etc. 

Liniers Market: The former ground of the National Domestic Market constitutes the center of the country livestock transactions. With an extension of 34 hectares it managed to form a neighborhood. It was recognized with the name of New Chicago thanks to the technology of its installations.

Mataderos Fair: In 2400 Lisandro de la Torre avenue it can be seen the monument to the Resero, symbol of the resero race and of the body of gauchos. It is actually located where the basis of the National Domestic Market was straightened up, work of the sculptor Emilio Sarguinet. In the small park artisans are installed each weekend and the fair can be enjoyed in a great demonstration of the gaucho tradition. In it is represented folk dance, rings races, music, song and it is a place where the field is mixed with the city. 

Salaberry by-Window: In 12700 General Paz avenue exists a by-window that in 1858 the Salaberry tamberos built to sight the indians attack. Then it was used like water dispenser of the troops and as private dwelling. Today it can be visited. 

Neighborhood of Tango

“El Cele” or Celedonio Flores wrote to this neighborhood and considered the neighborhood like “Mojon Lindero” (“milestone boundary”) of the Pampa for being between the field and the city.

“Today being a native is a feat

because we are been drowning..

we the natives go remaining

as the cherry in the cane. ..”

The beginnings of the tango in the neighborhood took place when the old neighborhood guard began to form with the brothers Margaruccio, Marino, whose son Pancho with his bandoneón accompanied Roberto Firpo. 

The Bandoneonist and director Joaquín de Reyes was born in Buenos Aires and in Mataderos his life in the tango. He initiated his work in the neighborhood, and he was assiduously seen in the Mataderos coffee stores. He debuted in 1925 in the Francisco Lomuto´s orchestra, and then he had a fleeting step in Juan D´Arienzo´s orchestra. He is the author of the tangos “Yo no se llorar” (“I don!t  know how to cry”) with letter of Celedonio Flores, “Decareando”, “Don Rosendo” (”Mr. Rosendo”) and “No me digas que no, corazon”(“Dont say me not, heart”). 

The pianist German Osvaldo Esper was born in Mataderos neighborhood in 1924, who improved his studies with the teachers Caruncio, Marcali and Rosetti. He integrated the Argentine bohemian quartet and several orchestras. Author of “Campaneando Buenos Aires” ("Ringing the bells Buenos Aires"), recorded by Cambareri and singed by J. Soler, “Melodia de ayer” ("Yesterday Melody "), “De Patricios a Mataderos” ("From Patricios to Mataderos") and the tango “Te alejas, porque” ("you go, why?").  

Alberto Castillo or “The 100 neighborhoods of Buenos Aires Singer”, was born with the name of Alberto Salvador De Luca, in the Mataderos neighborhood, on December 7th, 1914. The typical young boys of Mataderos describes Flores in “Chapaleando Barro” (“Splashing clay”), where he remembers: Antonio Tito, Domingo Lépez, the Roldán, Fuentes and Nicandro Reyes remembered also by Enrique Cadícamo:

“There were the flowery times

of Nicandro Reyes,

¡the best tamer

of the gone times!”

<Cadícamo: Matadero de Liniers>

In 1930 the famous duet Magaldi-Noda carries out an action in the New Chicago Social Center. 

The neighborhood coffee stores: Cedrón Coffee Store (1907), De las Broncas Coffee Store (1914) and De los Angelitos Coffee Store, that then would be installed in Rivadavia avenue and Rincon street, Don Fernando Coffee Store, New Chicago Coffee Store, De los Payadores Coffee Store, among the more important ones. 

The Oviedo Bar or “De los Payadores Bar” is found in front of the Resero, in the corner of Lisandro de la Torre avenue and De los Corrales avenue. It was a field store that functions since 1898. It was concurred by the brave that also worked in the slaughterhouses and was easy that big fights took place there.

It can be visited and there you can discover pleasant aftertaste of our past, almost nothing was modified, the mailbox and its billiards realize it. It was named by the Legislature, as “Buenos Aires City Notable Bar”.

Our Mataderos neighborhood has its day, April 14th, and also its hymn.. 

“...The Republic highlights

and will always intone

with the town that the song praises

the song that will sing

elevating to the skies

our immortal shout

¡Mataderos, you are model

of the national life!