Thomas Locke Hobbs
| Currently: Buenos Aires |
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| Here's another of those abandoned corckscrew pedestrian overpasses. I took this from the top of the Banespa Building. |
Vertical Favela
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| Edificio São Vito is a 30 story luxury high rise from the 1950s that fell on hard times, was abandoned and then invaded. It's known as a vertical favela and sits just east of downtown, prominently overlooking the Mercado Municipal, the main municipal bus terminal and the old city hall. |
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| Beautiful old buildings are currently used as wholesale fruit depots including this fantastic art deco bank building. |
The Big Worm
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| The Minhocão, or Big Worm, as it's popularly known is an elevated expressway running thru downtown. It's sort of São Paulo's Cross Bronx Expressway. It's universally hated and blamed by many for contributing to downtown's decline. It was built in the late 1960s during the military regime when wanna-be Jane Jacobs' were thrown in jail and tortured.
On Sundays the expressway is closed to traffic and free for pedestrians and bicylists. I enjoyed looking right into the 2nd story windows of all the belle epoque buildings lining the formerly fashionable Ave. São João. The whole area is gritty and rundown. The place is cruisy and reminds me of the Christopher St. Piers before they were renovated--the glare of the sun, the heat reflected off the blacktop, men idling improbably. It made quite a contrast from the previous Sunday's wanderings on the beach in Ipanema in Rio. |
Graffiti from the Minhocão
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Curitiba!Last week I travelled to Curitiba to check out its reknowned urban planning. Above are the photos from that trip. |
Weekend in Rio
| Last weekend I went to Rio with some friends for a total of 26 hours. We stayed at the Othon Palace in Copacabana. Here's the view from our hotel room: |
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Here's the view at night:
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| The Othon is twice as tall as any other building in Copacabana, probably because some bribe was paid. The view from the top is just one more of many spectacular ones to be had in the city. The picture above is looking away from the beach. Copacabana is 30 blocks long and four blocks wide. A quarter of a million people are jammed into it. Every block is dense solid with 10-12 story apartment blocks. |
Rua das Fantasias
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| Just east of downtown is a street with nothing but shops selling costumes, wigs, feature boas, beads & glitter. It's your one-stop for all your Carnaval costume needs. |
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| Even the buildings are in on the festive mood. |
Metro São Paulo
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| Sao Paulo's Metro was built in the late seventies in a uniform brutalist style. It's functional, clean and well-maintained. There are only three lines but construction is underway on a fourth. The first photo is the entrance to Clinicas. The next two photos are the interchange at Praça Se where the main two lines connect. |
More Abandoned Buildings
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| Here´s an upclose view of the bricked-up, abandoned construction I posted a few days ago. Its right in the center. The lower floors are used as a parking lot. |
Papaya/Mamão
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| The other morning I woke up to find this elephantine tropical fruit left in the fridge by my roommate Eduardo. |
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| Construction has started in my neighborhood for Line 4 of the subway. In 2010 I'll be able to get around the city very easily. Of course, I most likely won't be here then. For now the only visible signs of the work are these holes interrupting the sidewalk in several places. |
Sampa SkylineYesterday I went up to the 35th floor of the Banespa Building in down town São Paulo. The 400x400 pixels photos I normally post on this blog don't do justice to the city's skyline, so I've posted higher resolution photos on the page above. |
Clinicas - Obra Parado
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| This 28 story building was meant to be a hospital as part of the Clinicas complex. It was started in 1994 and construction has stopped and started several times. Recently a large banner, put up last year proudly announcing the restarting of the works was taken down. It was dirty and tattered. It´s been months since there´s been any activity. The building sits on top of a hill, an ominous beacon for poorly managed public works. |
Predio Abandonado
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| Scattered around São Paulo are empty cadavers of buildings, abandoned mid-construction. This one sits on the Marginal Pinheiros in Vila Olimpia, next to the newly opened luxury emporium Daslu. From a distance you can see clear through each floor to the sky beyond. It's presence seems almost spectral, altho until I get permission to shoot from the top of a nearby building, the photos above will have to suffice. Update:I just found an aerial photo of this site of Flickr. Update 2: According to my friend Cesar, this was to be the headquarters of ElectroPaulo, the local utility company. When the company was privatized, the new owners smartly realized the project made no economic sense and promptly halted it. Sampa Crazy City, photographs of crazy São Paulo by Brasilian photojournalist Marcelo Mim from his blog fotogarrafa. |
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| I was sitting in this bakery taking food pictures--pão de queijo, coxinha, etc.--when the guys working there wanted me to take some pictures of them. I obliged. Only later did I see the two pinapple stalks coming out from behind this guy's head, giving him a bugs bunny, carmen miranda sort of look. |
False Starts
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| Along Avenida do Estado is an elevated trackway for a half-built and abadonded railway. Spaced every quarter of a mile are these corkscrew pedestrian overpasses that were never completed. They lead to nowhere. |
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| This abandoned building downtown was bricked up, perhaps to prevent squatters or to preserve the structure, but it's all falling apart now. |
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Graffiti
| The style and form of graffiti here is different from New York or Europe. The stokes of paint are sharp and angular, not flowing and bubbling. |
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A Day in the Suburbs
| After our trip to the country, Emerson invited me and others out for a day out in San Caetano, a southern suburb of SP to hang out with his sister and mom. |
Emerson & Mom
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Monica & Pug
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Adorable Cats
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Eduardo, my roommate
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| I share a house in Pinheiros with Eduardo, a friend of a friend of a friend. He teaches piano and voice. |
Labels: brasil
Campos de Jordão
| Campos de Jordão is this town in the mountains northeast of São Paulo. It's at 5000 ft. and rich Paulistas go there in the winter to show off the heavy coats they would never get a chance to wear back in the city. The town is done up in a Swiss village style. |
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Labels: brasil
Back to Buildings
| Downtown São Paulo is not all seedy, decrepit, abandoned buildings. Some of the best architecture in the city is found there: |
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Labels: brasil
The Week - Lasers & Go-Go Boys
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| The Week is São Paulo´s largest gay club. It´s hard to take pictures inside a club that capture the experience. I hope these photos give a sense of the steroidal decadence of the disco. |
Labels: brasil
Tatoos
| Tatoos are very popular. Here are a few more extreme examples seen at the parade and related clubbing events: |
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| I can´t look at this last tatoo without thinking of the Fountains of Wayne song. |
Labels: brasil
More São Paulo Gay Pride Pics
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| The images are from the end of Paulista where it meets Consolação and an underpass connects to Rebouças. Since the parade lasted nearly 12 hours, I went home, showered, changed and returned. This is becoming a very gay week on my blog. I have a couple more clubbing-related posts coming up. Update Feb. 2006:According to blogger Made in Brazil the 2006 parade will be on June 17. |
Labels: brasil
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 | For more about me, please go visit my old geocities page. |