Humberto Primo

Humberto Primo is an interesting street that runs into and across Buenos Aires, west from the city’s old port of Puerto Madero, built in 1897 but within ten years doomed to eighty years of neglect due to the appearance of larger cargo ships for which the dock’s drought was insufficient. From Av Jujuy in barrio Monserrat, the street grid inexplicably sinks south to barrio Boedo where Humberto Primo is nipped into invisibility between the dominant roads of Av San Juan and Carlos Calvo.

West of Av 9 de Julio, with its fourteen lanes making it one of the widest roads in the world, the contrasting narrow and intimate Humberto Primo becomes the avenue of tango milongas, at 1462 with ‘Los Consagrados Centro Region Leonesa’, ‘Lo de Celica’ at 1783, ‘Obelisco Tango’ within metres at Av Entre Rios 1056, ‘Club Gicel’ round the corner at La Rioja 1134, and of course, just after its demise at Boedo, De Querus in Carlos Calvo 3748.

Far to the east, in barrio San Telmo, Humberto Primo skirts the south side of Plaza Dorrego where locals and tango tourists come for the Sunday antiques market, later to infuse with revellers, drum bands, tango performers, and the famous open air ‘Milonga del Indio’. Just ever so slightly east of the square, next door to Iglesia de San Pedro González Telmo is an 18th century rectangular building at 378, ‘Fundacion Mercedes Sosa’. Formerly a religious institution, hospital, barracks and prison, it is now a cultural centre dedicated to South American culture and the memory of the renowned folklorique performer, Mercedes Sosa.