Barrio de los Ingleses

Yesterday I told you about the photo exhibition. Well, after we finished setting it up, it was noon, so we decided to congratulate ourselves a bit and go celebrate. We went to a bodegón — one of those old-style, un-fancy restaurants that prepare great home-made-like meals. It was comparatively cheap, but very good (and abundant!). Our embedded storyteller and historian/anthropologist suggested (guess!) that we should go and take pictures.

A few blocks from the restaurant there's a group of old British-style houses that used to be the home of railway personnel one century ago. It's informally called Barrio de los Ingleses, and it's opposite the old company storehouses, nowadays recycled as the headquarters of the Nuevo Central Argentino. In fact it's just a couple of housing blocks only, outside the normal street grid, and seemingly outside of time — and location.

The place is called Batten Cottage. There's a string of nice small houses which were built for the VIP of the company, and a group of apartments for the common personnel, both temporary (passing by) and permanent. The apartments still keep their original number plates, and though the place is not exactly crumbling down in slow motion, most of it looks rather 19th-centuryish as well.

I'd passed by the Barrio de los Ingleses a million times, but I never dared get in and look around, least of all with my camera. There are people living there after all, and it's not exactly an upscale area, even though it's right beside a new park and near the shiny Alto Rosario shopping mall. Being with a group of half a dozen or so, however, I felt safe — we had enough cameras and the inquisitive attitude to convince anyone that we were curious tourists off the beaten track.

More pictures for your enjoyment right after this...