La Bolsa de Comercio

Valparaiso was home to South America's very first stock exchange. I blogged about it a while ago here.

From that first building, knocked down to reclaim more land for Plaza Sotomayor, it moved onto this one:

And then when this was knocked down to reclaim even more land, it moved to its current location on Calle Prat.

1906 Earthquake IV: Looters

As with most natural disasters, law and order after the 1906 earthquake here in Valparaiso was somewhat lacking. For this reason, the local authorities gave the order for looters to be executed on the spot. These guys were unlucky enough to be caught. You've got to love the mob justice. It's just like the Festival de Viña when they boo artists so much they cry and run off stage :)

This person looks no older than 14 or 15. And given that he's surrounded by gawping children, it suggests that he wasn't older than 14 or 15...

Plaza Sotomayor-Way Before and After

So after a quick bit of research after Fiona's comment in yesterday's post about the 1906 Earthquake I came across these images on the ligamar website

Fig. Nº 3. Año 1883. Plaza Rafael Sotomayor.
1. La Aduana de Stevenson, (1833).Desde 1856, Intendencia Provincial.
2. La Aduana de San Agustín, (1839). Tribunales de Justicia.
3. Plazuela de San Agustín. Plazuela de los Tribunales.
4. La calle del Comercio. Desde 1880, calle Arturo Prat.
5. La casa de Juan Mouat, (1843) mal llamada casa de Lord Cochrane.
6. La calle de la Planchada. Desde 1880, calle Ignacio Serrano.
7. La primera plaza de la Aduana. Desde 1881, plaza Rafael Sotomayor.
8. Segundo edificio del Correo, (1869).
9. Banco de Valparaíso, (1858).
10. Edifico de Bomberos, tras la remodelación de 1875.
11. Monumento a Lord Cochrane, inaugurado en 1873.
12. Estación Puerto.
13. Bolsa Comercial (1858), a punto de demolerse para dar paso al Monumento mausoleo de los Héroes de Iquique.
14. Jardín de la Bolsa.
15. Avenida Errázuriz, desde 1875.
16. Cajón de la Compañía de Diques Flotantes. Muelle Provisorio.
17. Edificio Rose-Innes.

Fig. Nº 4. Año 2000. Plaza Rafael Sotomayor.
1. Edificio de la Comandancia en Jefe de la Armada, (1910).
2. Plaza Rafael Sotomayor.
3. Edificio de los Tribunales de Justicia, (1937).
4. Plazuela de los Tribunales.
5. Ministerio de la Cultura, ex Correo, (1944).
6. Ex bar Antofagasta.
7. Hotel Reina Victoria.
8. Cuerpo Bomberos, (1955).
9. Edificio Grace, hoy Compañía Sudamericana de Vapores.
10. Edificio Los Héroes, (1980).
11. Estación Puerto, (1937).
12. Edificio de la Aduana, (1930).

They show the Plaza Sotomayor as it appeared in 1883 and as it is now. It won't be for much longer though (although the basic building layout will be the same). The Plaza is due to be renovated and completely changed again...Judging by the speed of every other municipal project, the remodelling should be finished sometime around 2078. According to the news last year, they should be finished early next year.

They might want to think about starting.

Valparaiso Earthquake 1906

Another of the books available for download on Memoria Chilena is entitled 'The Catastrophe of August 16 1906 in the Republic of Chile'. A better name could not be found.

The earthquake that hit Valparaiso at 7.55pm on that day was catastrophic. Around 3000 people died during the quake and countless more in the days that followed due to their injuries. 20,000 people were seriously injured. Much of Barrio El Almendral was flattened, along with a fair proportion of Barrio Puerto. In the hills, Cerros Carcel y Merced were the most affected. Cerros Alegre y Concepcion, the richest, most upmarket (as they still are) and mainly foreign neighbourhoods were barely affected due to the hills being pretty solid bedrock.

People were hit by falling masonry, crushed in their houses or burnt alive due to the fires that raged in the days after the event. Looters were summarily executed. Buildings continued to topple for days after the quake and more were demolished for being structurally unsound. Material losses were estimated at over 300 million pesos (I have no idea what that amount would be in today's money. Several hundred million Dollars I should imagine). The cost of reconstruction, many times that amount.

Map marking the worst hit areas:


Over the next few days and weeks I'll post more photos from after the disaster. Here are a few to get started.

Plaza Victoria:


Teatro Victoria:


Calle Victoria:

Bodies:

Hotel Colon

I've been posting slightly manically for the past couple of weeks so as tomorrow is May 1st, I'm going to take a short break until after the weekend. If you haven't checked in for a while, take a look back over the last 2 or 3 pages by clicking on 'older posts' at the bottom of the page.


So today's post is about the Hotel Colon. The hotel was built in 1846 by the US architect William Jenkins. It was Valparaiso's finest and most beautiful hotel of its day. In 1886, French actress Sarah Bernhardt stayed there. And that's your lot. There's pretty much no more information about the building available online. I really am going to have to go to the library and search through the archives some day.




The ex-hotel today is in an appalling state inside. It has been left to rot and chopped up into copy shops and tiny little offices. No maintenance whatsoever has been undertaken to keep this emblematic building in even half decent shape.

The ground floor Kodak locale is probably the best maintained of the entire building.


The marble entrance staircase is poor shape, cracked and broken.


What I assume would have been the reception area is now a little photo studio. My photo is glued to the display cabinet.


The main staircase, along with all the wood in the building, is in very bad condition although it wouldn't take a great deal of work to get it looking beautiful again.



The original skylight has been replaced with cheap corrugated plastic.


The ceiling on the first floor is suffering from water damage.


As are many of the rooms. The next two photos are from the second floor, which is used as some kind of carpentry workshop. I couldn't get to the third floor as the staircase was completely blocked up with wood. I could just about see up though-it's used as storage.



Here's a view of one of Harrington's.


The back of the building has sea views...


...which would have been especially pretty back in the 1800s-before Calle Blanco became a motorway- from one of the balconies.


Another piece of Valparaiso's architectural heritage in practical ruin.

Palestine and Chile

So moving seamlessly on from the fascinating discussion of nationality EMOL has an interesting special on its site at the moment. It relates the story of 117 Palestinians who have left their homeland and moved to Chile as part of a UN backed program.

Chile's not the only country participating in this program, of course, but what is interesting is that this little country on the far side of the world is actually already home to the largest Palestinian population outside of the Arab world, making up around 5% of the entire Chilean population and numbering roughly 300,000 people. Around 80% of these Palestinians arrived in Chile between 1900 and 1930 and came from mainly Christian towns which now fall under the umbrella of the district of Bethlehem. The vast majority of Palestinians in Chile are Christians so it'll be interesting to see whether the new arrivals-all Muslim- will be able to fit into the community here.

When the Palestinians first arrived in Chile they, like most new arrivals in any fairly homogenous country, were poorly treated and subjected to racism and discrimination. The huge majority of marriages were therefore kept within the community. Over time, however, the Palestinian population started to thrive socially and economically and became fairly well integrated. By the 1970s, over 70% of marriages were with non-Palestinian partners.

So why did they come to Chile in the first place? Well, the main reason is that they were trying to escape the Ottoman Empire, subjugation and conscription. The Turks weren't too keen on other peoples in those days-just ask the Armenians. This was the first and biggest wave of immigration. A second group arrived after the declaration of the state of Israel in 1948 and a third group arrived after the Six Day War in 1967.

Chileans of Palestinian origin now play an important economic and social role in this country and can be found in big business, sport, high level politics and showbiz. There's even a football team called Palestino, founded in 1920 and winning the title twice, in 1955 and 1978.

Arco Britanico

The Arco Britanico was a gift to the city of Valparaiso from the colectividad britanica. It was built in 1910-11 to celebrate 100 years of Chilean independence. The structure is covered in white marble and there are four friezes, one on each column of British 'heroes': O'Higgins, Cochrane, Simpson and O'Brian. We already know about Cochrane and O'Higgins (Chile's liberator). Simpson was another British Naval Officer/mercenary who was around at the same time as Cochrane (surprise, surprise-they didn't get along). Here he is:

I can't find anything out at all about O'Brian. I assume he was another naval guy who fought alongside the other three.

Anyway, here's the arch from sometime around 1925 and then from sometime last year. The photos are taken from different sides, by the way-the recent one looking east towards Viña and the older one towards the city centre.

Trams of Valparaiso

Valparaiso was the third city in South America to have a functioning tramway (or urban railway as it was originally called in Spanish), after Rio de Janeiro and Santiago.

The first line opened in March of 1863 with carriages imported from the USA. The first section of track ran between Baron Dock and Customs House in a loop that included Avenida Argentina, Calles Victoria, Montt, Donoso, O'Higgens, Esmeralda and Cochrane and returning via Serrano, Prat, Condell and Independencia. The carriages that ran along this route are likely to have been the first double deckers in the world.

By 1880, the Ferrocarril Urbano Valparaiso (FUV) had extended its network to include most of the downtown area and had 63 carriages in operation.

By the end of the century, another 2 companies had joined in the fun, extending the network all the way from Playa Ancha to Viña de Mar. The total distance from one end of the network to the other was around 20km and 75 trams ran along the tracks.

All the trams in Valparaiso were horse drawn until 1903...




...when a German consortium bought out the three companies and formed the La Empresa de Tranvias Electricos de Valparaiso, ordering 60 double decker carriages from the Van der Zypen & Charlier factory in Cologne.



The service opened on December 25th 1904 and used electricity from the new electric plant in Laguna Verde, 20km along the coast from Valparaiso.

The 1906 earthquake fortunately didn't damage very much of the network and shortly afterwards it was extended up to Playa Ancha and back around to Cerro Artilleria. By the end of 1907, the entire network had been electrified and the last horse drawn carriages were retired from service. It was then further extended up to Cerro Baron and Cerro Panteon, Santa Elena, Barrio O'Higgens, Las Zorras, Calles Tomas Ramos y Yerbas Buenas. The trams connected various upper-stations of the city's funicular lifts, creating an integrated public transport system that Valparaiso could really do with today.



The stop outside the cemeteries.



Plaza Victoria



In 1910, however, and for reasons unknown, the company decided not to invest in any more carriages or to extend the network further. The company let the carriages and tracks fall into ruin, systematically reducing its size and increasing ticket prices (rather like what has happened to the British rail network after privatisation). After a series of accidents, the council started limiting the number of passengers allowed on the trams and waiting at the rapidly deteriorating platforms, sparking public fury.

In 1920, after massive public, government and press pressure, the company finally renovated some of the carriages and platforms...but it was too little, too late. In March, a passenger was asked to leave a carriage by a ticket inspector. The passenger freaked out, threw a rock through the windscreen of the carriage and set in motion a massive riot that left 56 carriages burned, 21 of them beyond repair.

After these riots, the German company sold out to a Spanish consortium that was actually under the control of a Belgian company, SOFINA. Within a couple of years, the new controllers had repaired the damaged carriages, bought new ones and further extended the network. In 1923, the company was sold again, this time to British investors. New carriages had already been ordered from Belgian and were immediately put into service.

The Belgian carriages




Then in 1929, the company was sold on to a US company.

In 1930, the tram network reached its heyday, with 144 carriages and 60 km of tracks from Valparaiso to Vina and up into the hills.

The US company was expropriated by the state in 1945 and then systematically run into the ground by the incompetent new 'owners'. By 1950, the network consisted of two short routes that mirrored the first ever lines opened almost 90 years earlier. On the 30 December 1952, the last ever tram journey was made and the day afterwards, 32 Pullman Troles entered into service. They're still running today. Just.


Now the Troles, are great...but I'd much rather have a dedicated tram service around Valparaiso. They're just so much more...romantic and olde worlde. I like that. The Troles would be better if they were the only public transport allowed through the city centre. Banning the 4543454663240 buses that careen down the narrow city streets would be a blessing to anyone who has to spend more than 17 seconds downtown. There was an attempt to do this last year but the council cowardly backed out after complaints from shop owners, saying that business would drop if the buses weren't allowed through. I, personally, doubt this but the shopkeepers won and the Troles were almost lost forever before the government stepped in with a rescue plan (the plan was devised, in part, to make the Troles venture economically viable by allowing them a monopoly on public transport along a couple of main streets).

For a more detailed history of the trams in Chile and for more photos, visit Tranvias de Chile (in Spanish).



And for an immense amount of information regarding trams and trains from pretty much all over South America and to buy books regarding this subject, go visit this page here. If you're a tram lover, you won't be disappointed.

Dry Dock Version 1864.

I'm having trouble working out where this photo was taken from. By my reckoning, it must have been around Cerros Florida, Bellavista o Yungay but I can't be sure.

Anyway, the most interesting thing about the photo is the huge dry dock to the middle right. Not really being a sea-faring man myself, I hadn't ever really thought about when dry docks were invented, but it's easy to see that the system hasn't really changed much over the years. The photo below is obviously not from the same angle but shows the Sociber (Sociedad Iberica) dry dock that lives in the harbour these days. The Sociber is a little further around the harbour than the 1864 version was.




I wonder whether the sea-lions commandeered the dinky little boats in 1864 like they do today?


Another interesting thing to note is the building with a spire in the middle of the photo. This building was Latin America's first ever stock exchange.

Anyway, with a gay abandon so typical of Valparaiso today, the building was torn down in 1884 to make way for this pretty crappy statue to a Prat and the 'Heroes' of Iquique (there's a British flag wreath there because there was a Royal Navy ship in Valparaiso at the time).


The water used to reach all the way to its front steps until a couple of hundred metres of land were reclaimed. The following two photos- borrowed from Churchy's website-show what the area looked like in 1861 and 1874, with a small dock out the front of the building.




I haven't been able to find out when the land was eventually reclaimed. I'm guessing around the time the building was knocked down, in order to build the Plaza Sotomayor around it? Anyone know?

Dying in Valparaiso: Cementerio Numero 1

Cementerio Numero 1 was the first Catholic Cemetery in Valparaiso and is directly across from the Cementerio de Disidentes. It is the final resting place for many of the families that helped make Valparaiso the most important port on the west coast of South America. Names that anyone who has walked around Valparaiso's streets will recognise include: Ross, Lyon, Sotomayor, Cumming, Brown and many more.

This is much more a traditional Catholic cemetery. Whereas the Dissidents' cemetery follows the Protestant tradition of understated, simple graves Cementerio Numero 1 has far grander tombs, sculptures and reliefs.

Here are some photos (apologies for the fact that quite a few of them are a little lop-sided-as i mentioned before, you're not supposed to take photos and there were about 6 caretakers wandering around at the time so i had to take the photos surreptitiously...):




I mentioned in a previous post that this little statue kind of moved me...

...but this relief freaked me out...


This guy was a relation of Rafael Sotomayor Baeza, a war-mongering big shot


As far as i can make out, this is the family tomb of the Max Fontaine of Ear, Nose and Throat fame at the Van Buren Hospital here in Valparaiso.


I can't find much info about this family, other than at some point after 1939, Guillermo Purcell Winter was named an honorary member of the 5th Fire Department of Santiago








Cerro Concepcion and the Lutheran Church in the background.


The Dooner family lasted over 100 years (or at least no one has died since 1983). They married into the powerful Larrain family quite early on. Good move.


Eduardo Squire made his money after the War of the Pacific, acting as a kind of intermediary between the Chilean and Bolivian governments during peace negotiations. Basically, he made a killing off the nitrate fields nicked from Bolivia during the war.


This is Jorge Ross' tomb, a member of the monstrously powerful Ross family.


More to come another day...