Buenos Aires - San Telmo - Parque Lezama - 20071215d

Lezama Park is a public park in the

San Telmo San Telmo ("Saint Pedro González Telmo") is the oldest ''Barrios of Buenos Aires, barrio'' (neighborhood) of Buenos Aires, Argentina. A well-preserved area of the Argentine metropolis, it hosts some of its oldest buildings. One of the birthplace ...

district 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 ...

Overview

Historians believe the park's eastern barranca to have been the site of Spanish

Conquistador Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (; ; ) were Spanish Empire, Spanish and Portuguese Empire, Portuguese colonizers who explored, traded with and colonized parts of the Americas, Africa, Oceania and Asia during the Age of Discovery. Sailing ...

Pedro de Mendoza Pedro de Mendoza () (c. 1487 – June 23, 1537) was a Spanish ''conquistador'', soldier and explorer, and the first ''adelantado'' of New Andalusia. Setting sail Pedro de Mendoza was born in Guadix, Grenada, part of a large noble family that ...

's landing on what became the first, failed attempt to establish Buenos Aires in 1536. Well to the south of the colonial hamlet, the land was first purchased by Manuel Gallego y Valcárcel around 1790. The lot was later purchased by a succession of English Argentines, the last of whom, Charles Ridgley Horne, improved and expanded the property, raising a baroque mansion on the land's western edge, Defensa Street. Allied to the repressive paramount Governor of Buenos Aires,

Juan Manuel de Rosas Juan Manuel José Domingo Ortiz de Rozas y López de Osornio (30 March 1793 – 14 March 1877), nicknamed "Restorer of the Laws", was an Argentine politician and army officer who ruled Buenos Aires Province and briefly the Argentine Confedera ...

, Ridgley Horne was forced into exile after the strongman's 1852 overthrow, however, and the land was sold to José Gregorio Lezama, who added adjoining lots to the north and gave the green space its current dimensions. Lezama commissioned Belgian landscape designer Charles Veerecke to beautify the grounds, planting rows of tipa and

jacaranda ''Jacaranda'' is a genus of 49 species of flowering plants in the family Bignoniaceae, native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas while cultivated around the world. The generic name is also used as the common name. The species ' ...

trees decades before the three species became nearly emblematic of the city at large. Following his 1894 passing, Lezama's widow sold the 8 hectare (20 acre) estate to the city for a token sum, on the condition that the grounds become a park in her late husband's name. The couple's Defensa Street mansion became the Argentine National Museum of History in 1897 and the Municipal Parks Director, the noted

French Argentine French Argentines (; ) refers to Argentine citizens of full or partial French ancestry or persons born in France who reside in Argentina. French Argentines form one of the largest ancestry groups after Italian Argentines and Spanish Argentine ...

urbanist

Carlos Thays Carlos Thays (August 20, 1849 – January 31, 1934)Biog ...

, remodeled the park with gates, a rose garden, a

gazebo A gazebo is a pavilion structure, sometimes octagonal or Gun turret, turret-shaped, often built in a park, garden, or spacious public area. Some are used on occasions as bandstands. In British English, the word is also used for a tent-like can ...

, a

pergola A pergola is most commonly used as an outdoor garden feature forming a shaded walkway, passageway, or sitting area of vertical posts or pillars that usually support crossbeams and a sturdy open lattice, often upon which woody vines are t ...

, a sculpture garden and an

esplanade An esplanade or promenade is a long, open, level area, usually next to a river or large body of water, where people may walk. The historical definition of ''esplanade'' was a large, open, level area outside fortress or city walls to provide cle ...

in 1904. The park's surroundings were enhanced by the 1901 inaugural of the

Russian Orthodox Church The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC; ;), also officially known as the Moscow Patriarchate (), is an autocephaly, autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The Primate (bishop), p ...

of Buenos Aires and by the addition of a number of buildings in the Second Empire style, notably the one housing the ''Bar Británico'', an English-style

Pub A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the late 17th century, to differentiate private ho ...

still popular among locals. The Canale Biscuit Company factory, a leading neighborhood employer when it opened in 1910, was converted into an arts and commercial complex in 2006. The 1930s saw the removal of the perimeter gates, as well as the addition of monuments such as the one to

. Lezama Park began to show its age in recent decades, a development dramatized by the theft of a number of the park's many decorative urns and bronzes. Mayor

Mauricio Macri Mauricio Macri (; born 8 February 1959) is an Argentine businessman and politician who served as President of Argentina from 2015 to 2019. He has been the leader of the Republican Proposal (PRO) party since its founding in 2005. He previously ...

announced works to restore the park in 2008. The plan included the reintroduction of perimeter gates modeled on the originals and the addition of a

solarium Solarium may refer to: * A sunroom, a room built largely of glass to afford exposure to the sun * A terrace (building) or flat housetop * The '' Solarium Augusti'', a monumental meridian line (or perhaps a sundial) erected in Rome by Emperor Aug ...

, among other new features. Delays in its implementation, coupled with the growing number of

street vendor A hawker is a vendor of merchandise that can be easily transported; the term is roughly synonymous with costermonger or peddler. In most places where the term is used, a hawker sells inexpensive goods, handicrafts, or food items. Whether stationa ...

s, continued to blight the park, however.

Images from the park

Facing the park

File:BarBritanico.JPG, Bar Británico Pub (NW of the park) File:Katedralo de Sankta Triunuo (Bonaero) 08.jpg, The Buenos Aires Russian Orthodox Church (north) File:Buenos Aires - La Boca - Bizcochos Canale - 20071215a.jpg, The Canale Biscuit Company Lofts (south)

External links

''buenosaires.gov''

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lezama Park Parks in Buenos Aires Urban public parks