Buenos Aires Guide
San Telmo
It's impossible not to be seduced by the cobbled streets and alleyways of San Telmo, the most attractive of the barrios south of the city centre. Described by Borges in his short story El Sur as "an older, more solid world", the streets and buildings here have the appearance of decaying luxury, the result of a sort of reverse gentrification. In the nineteenth century, San Telmo was the neighbourhood of choice for wealthy landowners, who built grand mansions here, only to abandon them for the fresher air of northern Buenos Aires after a disastrous yellow fever epidemic in 1871. Soon the houses they left behind were put to a new use, as landlords keen to make a quick buck from the waves of immigrants then arriving in the city from Europe converted the buildings into crowded and unhealthy conventillos (tenements). Unlike in the northern, central and western sections of the city – which were variously torn down, smartened up or otherwise modernized in the early twentieth century – in San Telmo the effect of this loss of cachet was to preserve many of the barrio's original features: the new inhabitants simply adapted the buildings here to their needs. It remains largely a working-class area today, and dwellers of the more affluent northern barrios may warn you off coming here, but the area's superb architecture also attracts bohemians, students, backpackers and artists. Residents will tell you that rents are rising, and this, in addition to the arrival of designer clothing and home decor stores among the barrio's traditional antiques shops, seems to indicate that San Telmo's status may be on the rise once again.
Small, almost square in shape, San Telmo is bounded to the north by Avenida Chile, to the west by Calle Chacabuco, to the east by Avenida Ingeniero Huergo and to the south by Parque Lezama and Avenida Caseros. Just wandering the barrio's streets and admiring its beautiful old houses, traditional bars, markets and antique shops, can easily fill an afternoon.