Caminito ("little walkway" or "little path" in
Spanish) is a street museum and a traditional alley, located in
La Boca
La Boca (; "the Mouth", probably of the Matanza River) is a neighborhood (''Barrios of Buenos Aires, barrio'') of Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina.
Its location near the Port of Buenos Aires meant the neighbourhood became a melting pot of ...
, a
neighborhood
A neighbourhood (Commonwealth English) or neighborhood (American English) is a geographically localized community within a larger town, city, suburb or rural area, sometimes consisting of a single street and the buildings lining it. Neigh ...
of
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...
,
Argentina
Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...
. The place acquired cultural significance because it inspired the music for the famous tango "
Caminito (1926)", composed by
Juan de Dios Filiberto.
Nearby is the Vuelta de Rocha, historic place of Buenos Aires City.
History
During the 1800s, a small
stream
A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a strea ...
flowing into the
Riachuelo River ran along the same route where the Caminito is now. Later that century, this area of the stream became known as the ''Puntin'', the Genoese diminutive term for bridge (a small bridge allowed people to cross the stream there). When the stream dried up, tracks for the
Ferrocarril Buenos Aires y Puerto de la Ensenada were installed at the site. Disused tracks remain at the end of Caminito, along Garibaldi Street.
In 1954, the railroad closed, and the area where Caminito was became a landfill and the neighborhood's eyesore. Over the following three years, Argentine artist
Benito Quinquela Martín who lived nearby, painstakingly prepared the walls facing the abandoned street, applying pastel colors, and by 1960 had a stage put up at the southern end; the wooden-plank stage was replaced with a nearby theatre house in 1972. The artist was a personal friend of
Argentine tango composer
Juan de Dios Filiberto, who created a well-known 1926 tune by the same name.
File:Caminito-1939.jpg, The ''Caminito'' in its days as a railway lot, 1939
File:Caminito 1960.png, The ''Caminito'' in 1960, newly restored
File:Caminito Buenos Aires Argentina.jpg, The lyric ''Caminito'', immortalized in song by Juan de Dios Filiberto
File:Caminito Farolito.jpg, Pastel hues in ''Caminito''
File:Caminito Havanna Buenos Aires.jpg, Sign at the Havanna store in ''Caminito''
References
External links
Caminito Street in La Boca neighbourhood
{{coord, 34.6393, S, 58.3628, W, format=dms, source:kolossus-ptwiki, display=title
Streets in Buenos Aires
Pedestrian streets in Argentina