Neighborhood | Balvanera
Retreat: Strong Neighborhood…
 
“El Retiro” neighborhood  is narrowly linked with our tango. There were located places, that some time ago, conformed closed and marginal places. The San Martin Park and their Chinese headquarters, the Immigrants hotel and all that crossbreeding, gave rise to new sounds, dances and forms of expression. They were fundamental factors for the starts of the 2 x 4. Here our homage.. 
 
Its limits: Montevideo street, Uruguay street, Cordoba avenue, Madero avenue, San Martin street, C. Uruguay street, Antepuerto avenue. 
 
Retiro neighborhood is situated in the east of the city. It is said that its name was received in the middle of the 19th century, by a great casern of the 17th century, located in the San Martin park. 
 
Its land was marginalized of the city by being considered useless, as in the present Lavalle park born a natural accident called the “Zanjon of Matorras”, that today is found inside of tubes in the road way “Three sergeants” street.
 
With the railroad arrival and the families settlement, Retiro was divided in two: the low sector that was characterized for a noisy environment, prostitute places, where the braves joined in the small coffees located in 25 de Mayo street and Reconquista street. On the other side, in front of the San Martin park, was found the Florida street where the aristocracy of the city used to visit it. In the 50th this division did not exist anymore and the low aspect started to change. 
 
Retiro neighborhood was elected in 1608 as zero place, there the limits of the country seats were measured. It was the captain Miguel de Riblos who decided to build in that land, and to transform it into village. 
 
In its nearby was installed the bullring finished in 1801. It was located in the prolongation of the Santa Fe avenue and Marcelo T. de Alvear street. Its architecture was arranged in octagonal form and contained a double wagon of boxes and wood steps. During Sundays and holidays days, the Buenos Aires Company High Ancestry attended to its spectacles. 
 
“I have my love bullfighter, I live with grief
do not  kill her a bull in foreign land.
With the sword to the bullfighter, handles the bug
and the woman the man with its fan. ..”
<sing made by 
Pancho el Ñato, before its show>
 
 
 
The bullring was demolished in the year 1819 to build in that land the Retiro headquarters, installed in which today would be the San Martin Park. 
 
The park was short-lived. Its walls were seen mistreated because of the battle that took place during the Buenos Aires Defense.  In its last times was grenadiers regiment  deposit. Its lastest race was on November 11th, 1809. 
 
In 1812 the government arranged the headquarters under the José de San Martin command for the seat of its cattle raisers and to locate its office. 
 
The union of the old bullring with the headquarters, make it a place where traveling salesmen abounded, Chinas barracks, in this way the neighborhood acquires the name of “Strong Neighborhood”. 
 
The Retiro headquarters subsisted during  a great part of the 19th century, but in the middle of it the “Glory Field” (thus was called it) was already considered an urban park. For 1864 the headquarters was destroyed by an explosion where many soldiers died.
 
San Martin Park
 
“San Martin in the air gallops
and in the park the thick woodland
he pretends in around fantastic troop.
It blows the wind. It listens. ..!  Each puff
It keeps an echo of the “Sacred Shout”.
<Enrique Diez Canedo – Spanish writer>
 
At the Florida walk end, it is found the General San Martin Park where is erected the English tower, the monument to the General José de San Martin and the monument in memorial of the soldiers death on the Falklands Islands war (formed by 25 black marble plates with the names of all the soldiers fallen). 
 
San Martin Park is delimited by Florida street, Santa Fe avenue, Esmeralda street, Maipú street and Del Libertador avenue. It was known as " Glory Field " (by being the battle field during the second English invasion of 1807), and also like " Mars Field " (by the Horse Grenadiers Regiment). 
 
In the lowering of Maipú street raises the statue to Leandro N. Alem, work of Pedro Zonza Briano. At the gully foot is found the memorial with permanent custody, that contains the combatants hundreds names. There is expressed: “To the fallen in the gest of the Falklands Islands and Atlantic South”
 
It was in the centennial of the San Martin’s birth (February 25, 1878) when the Park took its name to bring him homage. 
 
Immigrants Hotel
 

“...We the Argentine descend from the ships”
Borges
 
When the Argentine government verifies that many Europeans that arrived to the country for “doing the America” they needed a space to cover that necessity. 
 
“The government offers their immediate protection to the individuals of all the nations, and to their families that want to obtein the full enjoyment of the society rights, while they do not disturb the public tranquility and they respect the country laws”
<1812- F. Chiclana, J. M. Pueryrredón, B. Rivadavia y N. Herrera>
 
That way the government tried to promote and to increase this migratory current, which would bring the country progress. Thus the Immigrants asylum is constructed in the neighborhood near the harbor zone.
 
It was located in front of the river and was built in the year 1887 by the engineer Federico Stavelius. 
 
There were three flats that offered a Buenos Aires pan-view. The hotel was immense and could harbor in its two semidetached buildings a lot of immigrants that arrived to the place in an open trolley thrown by horses. 
 
With the passage of time this space became an illnesses focus infectious, in this way alternative projects were originated in order to build a new and bigger building... 
 
Currently it is the Migrations National Direction headquarters. 
 
The railroad
 
Saying Retiro is the same as to say railroad. There arrive the three train terminals, the bus terminal and a great quantity of line bus that converge there. 

 
The terminal is a structure that was manufactured by an English business company and was transported in ship from England. The work began in 1910 and culminated five years later with the inauguration of the president: Victorino de la Plaza. The terminal included services as: waiting rooms, baths, salons and a restaurant and the coffee store. 
 
The station was composed by a central hall and lateral buildings with a neoclassical architectural style. The railway platforms were built between 1911 and 1914.
 
Years after its inauguration, the Retiro neighborhood became the main city circulation. 
 
At the end of 1988 many public tender calls were produced to remodel the terminal, that  included the National Historic Monument title. Thus it was born the “Retiro Project” to remodel the facade and the station internal spaces, that in other epochs was a Sunday walk. 
 
Places to remember:
 
Reconquista street, Florida street and San Martin street, some of the first that had gas lighting. In the Florida street was found “The Florida Garden”, Buenos Aires intellectuals meeting point. 
 
The old Seaver passage, today already absent. There a beautiful small square was found that disappeared in 1978. 
 
It is worth to remember that during the first half of last century the Retiro beaches were utilized by the Buenos Aires people to be refreshed, nowadays that space is an infectious focus… 
 
If we walk across Retiro we can distinguish clearly two spaces, one that was characterized for the people turmoil, by the traffic and offices. The other space conformed by the luxurious hotels, the Carlos Pellegrini Park, the palaces zone, the Chancellery, the Military Circle.  Currently it is one of the most traveled neighborhoods by the tourists, where the purchase of regional origin articles and the crafts and Argentine leathers are shown.