Caminito

Caminito is a little street in La Boca, the neighborhood, or barrio of the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires. It retains a strong European flavour, with many of its early settlers being from the Italian city of Genoa.

[edit] History

The history of Caminito is basically as follows:

Early 1800s onwards: a small stream flowing into the Riachuelo river ran along the same route where Caminito street is now found
Later that century, this area of the stream became known as Puntin, the Genoese diminutive term for bridge, because a small bridge allowed people to cross the stream here
When the stream dried up, the General Roca railway to the provinces that ran past here (you can see the disused tracks at the end of Caminito, along Garibaldi street) a deviation from the track followed the dried-up riverbed, and was where train repairs were carried out
In 1954 the train line went out of action, and the area where Caminito now is became a landfill and a bit of an eyesore
But soon after, probably the most famous Argentine artist Benito Quinquela Martin, an abandoned orphan who was adopted by a Genoese immigrant couple in La Boca, was the man to take action. He felt he owed the barrio something in return.