In my goal to emulate Patrick Lowe, (with the exception of the peanut allergy), I decided to do some walking on Saturday. This began innocently enough with a cab ride, moving in from the bird section of Moema (the streets are all named after birds . . . my particular street means 'Goldfinch') towards the center of the city. My cab driver had worked the same taxi station for 19 years. When he first started, my neighborhood was full of single-family homes (I live on the eighth floor of a 24 story building).
After a brief stop at the Mercado Municipal, which is like Union Market (for DCites) or a very low-end version of the Ferry Building (for Bay Areaers), it was off through the streets of old Sao Paulo. Except that the streets aren't really charming, or old. Crowded, yes, even for Saturday morning, but this was not the quaint early city architecture, or even the boom years buildings, that I expected. For every gem like this Banco de Sao Paulo (see below) there were 4 concrete blocks that looked nearly abandoned.
Part of this vacancy comes from history. Sao Paulo grew up very fast. In 1872 it had 26,000 inhabitants (Rio had 275,000), a tiny and forgettable town. But with industrialization the city exploded; by 1920 the city had 500,000, and by 1930 nearly 1 million. It now has 20 times that. Basically, like a star which burns too big and too bright, it seems to have exploded, giving birth to dozens of individual neighborhoods with separate charm, leaving the original center more or less vacant. But, as Brazil often showcases, there's a colorful life that comes out on any blank canvas:
So instead of taking a taxi back, I chose to walk home, which ended up being a very long walk. But I got to walk through several neighborhoods with more life to them, including the heavily Japanese Liberdade area. There are now only 85 more neighborhoods to see . . .
