Buenos Aires Unknown

The barrio of Velez Sarsfield in Buenos Aires is a typical low rise housing area, that like many others was mainly populated during the urban explosion around the turn of the 20th century.

These days it is a middle class barrio, and among the largely low rise housing there are some small factories and warehouses, in addition to it being a thriving used car dealership area.

It is nice to visit primarily because it is a typical Buenos Aires barrio - you will see the way average portenos really live, rather than the tourist picture you get in Recoleta or Palermo.

This typical barrio was named after Dalmacio Vélez Sársfield, a 19th century author of the Argentine civil code, and a translator of Latin poems into Spanish.

The 'Maldonado' stream runs through Velez, which in the early 20th century was turned into an underground stream by building a man made tunnel. Today, the main Avenue in the barrio, Juan B Justo, runs over the top of the tunnel, marking where the stream used to be. The Maldonado was at one point a natural marker for the city limits of Buenos Aires, before the towns of Flores and Belgrano sprang up (which are now of course major barrios of Buenos Aires).

Suprisingly, the famous football team, Club Atletico Velez Sarsfield, is actually based in the barrio of Liniers, and not Velez Sarsfield itself. So don't get lost here looking for the stadium!