Avenida Uriburu

Avenida President Jos Evaristo Uriburu runs through a high-rent portion of Buenos Aires. It's a side street of laundries, kindergartens, neighborhood restaurants and groceries, most with a five or ten story apartment house plopped on top. There's usually a glass door with one of those high-end, Israeli locks and a door man who smiles at the right people. The man who sells DVDs in paper sleeves is laying out his wears on the broken sidewalk. No hurry to buy he'll be here all day, every day. Two blocks one way is a shopping mall abutting Recoleta cemetery. Two blocks the other way is Avenida Santa Fe, a busy, tree-lined shopping street. The beggar who waits for alms across from Garbarino's is well dressed. Our street is forgotten, brand new, outdated, bustling, sad and relentlessly urban, but all November the city is Jacarandas in bloom. Flower sellers are out, the caf windows open.