Toodling through Gay San Telmo

It's nowhere near a done deal yet--- we haven't even put an offer in. But The Other Nostril and I are thinking about buying a loft here in BsAs.

The how and the why and the wherefore could take so much typing to unpack my hands would fall off-- we haven't yet decided, but we also haven't yet decided that we have to decide. (Get that?)

Soon we will have to decide-- we're leaving for home in just about two weeks now.

But the upshot is, we've found a ~dreamy~ little loft in San Telmo, one of the oldest parts of town, once inhabited by the swells, and then abandoned back in the 1860's (¿I think?) because of an outbreak of yellow fever in that section of the city.

They all packed up and moved to Recoleta, and in many ways, San Telmo has never completely recovered.

It does have a reputation of being the heart and soul of the city's tango culture, although I believe that's just the part that the tourists have ready access to. It also has a reputation for dirt, grit, trash, and crime.

But with its cobblestone streets and mostly original architecture, it is a charming part of the city. It's got good "bones."

My only real knock against it is San Telmo missed out on the urban greening project the city planners doubled down on in so many other parts of town. Bazr and I joke that if we do buy there, we'll have to spearhead the San Telmo "Friends of the Urban Forest" League. Not many parks, not many street trees. It makes it a whole lot hotter to walk around on a high summer day.

But San Telmo feels like NYC Soho/Chelsea thirty years ago, or the Meatpacking District twenty years ago. An area ripe for intrepid urban pioneers to come into cheap, beautiful spaces. What is the progression of gentrification? First the artists, then the gays, and then the yuppies-- it's a natural fact.

San Telmo has had the reputation of having cheap artist squats for years, and lo, the gays are coming! The pictures prove it! And Bazr and I look at one another and ask ourselves, if you know how this story goes, why wouldn't you buy into it now?

But Buenos Aires, while it's a lot of things, isn't New York. And there are a thousand other factors we are discussing. I'll blog more about it some other time.

For now, enjoy the rainbow streets of San Telmo.

~~~

The Pride Cafe, where the tours of Gay San Telmo start

Balthazar, where you can buy lots and lots of beautifully tasteful men's boxers, beautifully tastefully displayed, if you need them

I saw these graffiti four years ago-- I'm delighted to see them still here-- a bit faded from the sun, but unblemished. "Lesbians are your mothers, daughters and sisters." And "Kiss who you want." Wise words!

This is the Babel Hotel, next door to a sweet vegetarian restaurant. There's at least one other gay hotel in the neighborhood-- the Axel. They have sister hotels in Barcelona, New York, and Berlin, with a swimming pool on the roof you can lounge under, and watch the boys swim over your head. (Sorry-- no photos today.)

I am particularly delighted by the creative use of the "at" symbol to simultaneously capture the masculine and feminine endings on Spanish words. We don't have such an elegant (and modern-feeling) solution to our gendered language in English. Like a lot of people, I just can't get behind the trans movement's attempt to bring pronouns such as "ze" and "hir" into the language.

I love the way "Chic@" looks-- my only question: How do you pronounce it?