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Buenos Aires

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Pyramid of May

This square, which owes its name to the Independence Revolution of May 25, 1810, is the oldest in the city. Until the middle of the seventeenth century the place was occupied by the Jesuits, but when these were moved all their buildings were demolished. For the year 1803 a recova began to be constructed, becoming this the first commercial gallery of Buenos Aires. La Recova divided the square into two, on one side the Plaza de Armas or the Fort and on the other the Plaza Mayor, which since 1808 was called Plaza de la Victoria. After 1810, the part that gave to the Fort happened to be called May 25. For 1811, in commemoration of the anniversary of the May Revolution, the first monument of the city is erected: a pyramid of bricks and hollow, which is now known as the May Pyramid. In September of 1873 the monument to General Belgrano was inaugurated and in 1883 the Mayor of Buenos Aires, Torcuato de Alvear, bought the Recova and destroyed it, with this demolition the two squares were united.

It was the French architect and landscape painter Charles Thays who designed and executed the improvements in the square from 1891 until the day of his death.

Buenos Aires


Tips

This square is the place par excellence of the meetings and claims of the Argentines. The greatest exponent of such expression is the Grandmothers and Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, an association that was created during the military dictatorship of 1976 and which claimed for the appearance of people who had disappeared during the de facto government.

 In the song "With the withered forehead" of the Spanish singer-songwriter Joaquín Sabina, the Plaza de Mayo is the scene of the disagreement and the pain of a lover in search of his girl: "Buenos Aires is like you told, today I went for a walk, and arriving at the Plaza de Mayo I started crying and I started screaming 'where are you?' ".


Pratical Information

Transport

At the center of crossing of Rivadavia, Bolívar and Hipólito Yrigoyen Avenues