Buenos Aires

Introduction

Early in the twentieth century, Buenos Aires, the city of fair winds, became one of the world's great cities. By the tens of thousands, European immigrants sailed across the Atlantic to the "Paris of Latin America" looking for a better life. Money seemed no object in those days. Fueled by the great agricultural wealth that came from the heart-land of the nation, great new buildings and monuments were the order of the day. In 1908, a grand opera house opened its doors to world acclaim and became a symbol of Buenos Aires' wealth and sophistication. By 1913, the city had Latin America's first underground metro system in operation. The city continued growing through two world wars and a global economic crisis in the 1930s.

The city's residents, known as Porteños, or people of the port, were confident and brash. To the people of neighboring countries, the Porteños were arrogant and aloof. The dapper Carlos Gardel epitomized the Porteño during the height of his musical and acting career early in the century. Supremely confident, always well dressed and neatly groomed, Gardel was an ambassador to the Tango, a melancholic music that grew out of the fringes of Buenos Aires.

By the end of the twentieth century, Buenos Aires had managed to retain if not its confidence at least its arrogance as it literally fell apart. In the 1990s, the Porteño media were busy reporting stories about decaying buildings that dropped balconies onto the street like rotten apples falling off trees, the heavy pollution that tainted the city's buenos aires, corruption and police brutality, the proliferation of rats and feral cats, and countless other problems.

Economists and historians are still trying to figure out what went wrong in Argentina. Once the seventh-wealthiest country in the world, it quickly dropped to seventy-seventh by the 1960s. The blame is often placed on the economic policies of former President Juan Domingo Perón, who created the nation's most powerful political movement in the 1950s and attempted to industrialize the nation at the cost of agriculture. Just as devastating to the nation was the brutal military dictatorship of 1976–83, which ruled with an iron fist from the capital city of Buenos Aires. Thousands of Argentineans were killed, and thousands who were arrested were never seen again. In the capital's main Plaza de Mayo, a square in front of the government palace, each Thursday a group of mothers remind the nation of sons and daughters not yet found.