Ok, first let me localize you guys who never heard about Porto Alegre.
Porto Alegre is a 1,3 million people city (4,2 million in metropolitan area) in southern Brazil, capital of Rio Grande do Sul state.
lets zoom into the city and into downtown, where I took the pics
Sorry, there are some localization points and neigbhborhoods in this map, but would only be useful to relate this thread to other threads of the city, where some of these places are mentioned
ok, in this big sat image, you can see where each pic was taken (example: 2 a 7 means "from 2nd to 7th"). Mercado Público means Public Market, Chalé Praça XV is a restaurant where I met some SSC forumers, Prédio Telhado Verde means "Green Roofed Building", and Prédio União is the one which appears in the first photo of my collection.
Check back this big sat image everytime you get lost!
THE PHOTOS!!
I am sorry to the SSP mods, but I dont know what to do when I have a thread with pictures I TOOK mixed with pics other forumers took, or that I found on the net (to better illustrate some areas).
Anyway, I will say which pics are not mine. Dont worry, most of them ARE MINE. Only my pics are numbered in the sat image.
CREDIT: Gilberto
Here are the Porto Alegre SSC forumers who met at the restaurant at XV Square, near the public market. It was a warm saturday afternoon and the streets were devoid of their natural buzz, since in such days, most people preffer the air conditioned confort of malls.
Im the fatty guy with the black cap and gray shoes. Fuck, I am 13 kilos over my normal weight...
1 - União Bank
2 - We left the restaurant to head up the Borges de Medeiros Avenue, which is quite a canyon, at least to brazilian standarts
This is the canyon´s entrance, as you can see on the big sat image.
3 - Yes, quite a lot of decaying buildings. It happens that this is old downtown. In Brazil for some reason, demolishing buildings is not common, and there is no need to do it since there is no real restriction against building commercial and residential highrises elsewhere in the city. So companies start to build their shiny new highrises in other parts of the city and the old downtown is left to the flies.
4 - Yes, I cut Eduardo Haus in half at this pic. Left of him, you can see Gilberto with the camera on his hand. I never noticed he was taking a pic of me!
CREDIT: Gilberto
The pic he took of me!
5 - Porto Alegre SSC forumers at meeting, with Borges de Medeiros canyon at background. Quite a lot of forumers from Porto Alegre could not go to the meeting. I am not really from Porto Alegre btw, but from a city 40km north of it, Novo Hamburgo. Quite a lot of highrises there, but lets not get offtopic.
6 - One of the reasons the old downtown is rotting is that is almost impossible to drive in most of its streets. Many streets were converted to pedestrian only. There is no subway, only a surface urban train that goes around downtown. There is a planned underground subway to cut downtown but money is not that abundant in the 3rd world. Porto Alegre had a very good tram system (like those from San Francisco) but they were removed in the 60s to give space to the "progress of cars".
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8 - this is one of my fav buildings in the city. I forgot its name, but it was build in the 40s.
Built in the 40s you may ask? Yes, I know many of you guys are ignorant about Brazil´s urbanity and may think brazilian cities grew out of the jungle only in the last decade
Here are a few pics of Porto Alegre in the 50s (CREDITS: Gilberto, who owns the website
www.portoimagem.com)
9 - some details of this building. Sincerely, they should remove those damn white external blinds (quite common in Brazil). Use some fucking internal curtains!
10 - some trees are already loosing its foliage. Its autumn after all, even though is much hotter than it should be. Porto Alegre is in southern Brazil, and temperatures reach around freezing point in winter and like once every 10 years, it snows in the city
. But less than 100km north of Porto Alegre, in heights of just 800 meters, it snows every year.
11 My fucking camera has some problem and its results in this stupid noise in some pics...
btw, this is Otávio Rocha Viaduct, build in the 30s. Graffiti guys are quite prolific in Brazil, argh!
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14 - from the top of the viaduct, looking south
CREDITS: Gilberto
here are us, at the top of the viaduct
me, shooting the canyon
15 We went up a building (with permission of course, to shoot some pics from above. I found interesting this improvised bathtube on the top of this building. Shit, that look fucking dangerous! I mean... if you slip in the wet edge...
CREDITS: Gilberto
most of the city highrises spread to the east, but there was no angle to shoot in that direction.
looking south
looking west, the metropolitan cathedral
the Otávio Rocha viaduct, down there
here is from where those pics were shot
16 - looking north towards the canyon entrance
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Gilberto also took a photo
21 - some trees in downtown streets... and lots of noise in my shitty camera
22 - an old house
23 - Metropolitan Cathedral
24 - the dome was just renovated. Now we must wait 20 years till it gets green again!
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26 - in this image, looks like painting, but these are glass vitrals.
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28 - state government palace
29 - Its called Palácio Piratini.
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31 - State flag
32 - The Palácio Farroupilha holds the state deputies chamber. I took no shot of it unfortunatelly, nor of the beautiful square in front of the Cathedral and State Palace...
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34 Following Duque de Caxias streets towards west...
35 As you can see, Porto Alegre is NOT plain
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37 Only the façade of this house was preserved, and a highrise was build behind it
38 - this bucolic street ends in a stairway. The stairway is some 10 floors high
39 - the stairway
40 - night falls and we are heading home. I had a flu and my head was ACHING terribly, but I could not miss the SSC meeting
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42 - this was a famous bakery in the beginning of the 20th century
43 - hmmm... looks kinda dark. Some of these streets are not the safest at night!
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