Caminito, Buenos Aires

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.

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  7 , was the man to take action. He felt he owed the barrio something in return.