Wilde, Buenos Aires
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Wilde is a city in the
Avellaneda Partido Avellaneda is a partido in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. It has an area of and a population of 663,953 in 2001. Its administrative seat is the city of Avellaneda. The partido is located in the Greater Buenos Aires urban area, separated fro ...
,
Buenos Aires Province Buenos Aires, officially the Buenos Aires Province, is the largest and most populous Provinces of Argentina, Argentine province. It takes its name from the city of Buenos Aires, the capital of the country, which used to be part of the province an ...
,
Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...
. Wilde is the most populous district in Avellaneda, with a total of 65,881 inhabitants (as of a 2001 census). It is a part of the
Greater Buenos Aires Greater Buenos Aires (, GBA), also known as the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area (, AMBA), refers to the urban agglomeration comprising the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of B ...
urban agglomeration An urban area is a human settlement with a high population density and an infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas originate through urbanization, and researchers categorize them as cities, towns, conurbations or suburbs. In urbani ...
. The city originated as an estancia founded by Luis Gaitán . The settlement was the site of the first salthouse in what is now Argentina. In 1888, Eduardo Wilde named it after his uncle, Doctor José Antonio Wilde (1813–1887). Wilde was a physician who led local efforts to improve public health, including obtaining permits for the construction of the local hospital and sewer system. The 1885 opening of a Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway station at the site led to the establishment of Villa Jurado, the city's first subdivision (1889). Following a movement of English gardens, the city was developed by local architects as the residential borough of Avellaneda. Large grounds previously utilized by the local "gauchos" for the training of horses and farming land were eventually converted into large parks, and the region became a popular area for weekend cottages. Wilde rapidly developed into a small city, while keeping countryside aesthetics with its residential borough. On the east end of Wilde, there is a large coastal area with a sandy beach linked to the
Río de la Plata The Río de la Plata (; ), also called the River Plate or La Plata River in English, is the estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River at Punta Gorda, Colonia, Punta Gorda. It empties into the Atlantic Ocean and ...
, from where it is possible to see (on clear days) the coast of
Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...
.


Education

During the 1930s through 1950s, many European immigrants settled in and around Wilde, creating a multilingual society that gave rise to bilingual schools and private colleges in the area. Such institutions including: * Instituto San Pablo * Colegio San Ignacio * Colegio San Diego * Colegio Modelo Sara Eccleston * Colegio Modelo John F. Kennedy * Colegio Mariano Moreno * Instituto Salvador Soreda * Colegio San Miguel Arcangel


Clubs

Wilde is home to the training ground of
Club Atlético Independiente () is an Argentine professional sports club, which has its headquarters and stadium in Avellaneda, a city of the Buenos Aires Province. The club is best known for its Association football, football team, which plays in the Argentine Primera Divi ...
, and Club El Porvenir, soccer clubs which play in the lower leagues of Argentine football. Wilde is also home to some of the oldest social clubs in the region, the "Sporting Club" and the "Club Juventud" (meaning the youth club).


Historical Records

In 1619, Don Melchor Maciel acquired the lands of Gaitán and created a larger manor with grounds for cattle, also developing a residence by the large shores of the
Rio de la Plata Rio or Río is the Portuguese and Spanish word for "river". The word also exists in Italian, but is largely obsolete and used in a poetical or literary context to mean "stream". Rio, RIO or Río may also refer to: Places United States * Rio, Fl ...
. After his death, his widow, Catalina de Melo, passed the land by marriage to Home Pessoa de Sá, who eventually created an even larger property of all the way to the river Samborombón. This large territory eventually passed on to his son's wife Maria de Arroyo, who decided to divide the land into four large sections to help control and administer funds. One of these sections was acquired by Don Juan Estanislao Zamudio and his wife Doña María del Carmen La Valle during XVIII. The section containing the house was purchased by a German family and eventually reached the hands of Mercedes von Bismarck, who before her death, donated the land to the church for the creation of a park for the youth that at a time was named "''Geodesia''" and today is known as "Parque Dominico" for the Dominican Monastery that housed the administration. A neighboring landowner, Federico Gattermeyer, did likewise and in 1908 donated a large trust to the Port Railway for the creation of a station in Villa Domínico that was opened in 1909. The remaining lands were acquired by various families, among them, one of the Pereyra Iraola to develop the land since the north part of the Province of Buenos Aires was not as fertile as the Wildes. The settlement of these new families created a
gentrification Gentrification is the process whereby the character of a neighborhood changes through the influx of more Wealth, affluent residents (the "gentry") and investment. There is no agreed-upon definition of gentrification. In public discourse, it has ...
of the area, establishing mansions and a few large manors near what is today the main street called "''calle Las Flores''".


The British and the Wilde Railway Station

Argentina's two biggest
railways Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport, next to roa ...
, the Central Argentine Railway and the Buenos Aires Great Southern Railway, were built, owned, and operated by the British. Both had headquarters in
London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
and offices and
stations Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle stat ...
in Wilde and
Quilmes Quilmes () is a city on the coast of the Rio de la Plata, in the , on the southeast end of the Greater Buenos Aires, being some away from the urban centre area of Buenos Aires. The city was founded in 1666 and is the seat of the eponymous '' ...
. They were started at the same time, but the Southern was made in sections, while the Central was planned as a great iron road to open almost of sparsely populated, rich land. A decree issued in August 1863 authorized the construction of the Southern, based on a proposal by a group of people that included the already mentioned wealthy Irish merchant Thomas Armstrong and George Drabble, a pioneer in railways and in the frozen-meat trade and one-time president of the Bank of London and River Plate who had arrived in Buenos Aires in 1848, Alfred Lumb,
Henry Green Henry Green was the pen name of Henry Vincent Yorke (29 October 1905 – 13 December 1973), an English writer best remembered for the novels ''Party Going'', ''Living (novel), Living,'' and ''Loving (novel), Loving''. He published a total of n ...
, John Fair and Henry Harrat, merchants and landowners who were anxious to invest in a promising enterprise and to increase the value of their property by means of the new communications. The initial authorized capital was about £700,000. Lumb had the concession and the support of shareholders, among whose names were Thomas Duguid, the Fair family, British Consul Frank Parish (later the Southern's chairman who, with Baring, bought into the Central) and David Robertson. They were all the elite of the British community and as such found no difficulty in selling shares to investors in London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester. The company quoted on the London stock exchange. The ''Standard'' of 4 August 1865 announced that, 'The Southern Railway will be open for passenger traffic on Monday, stating that the trains will leave in the morning from
Constitución railway station Constitución railway station () is a large railway station in Constitución, Buenos Aires, Constitución, a in central Buenos Aires, Argentina. The full official name of the station is (in English: Constitution Square Station) reflecting the fa ...
to
La Plata La Plata () is the capital city of Buenos Aires province, Argentina. According to the 2022 Argentina census, census, the La Plata Partido, Partido has a population of 772,618 and its metropolitan area, the Greater La Plata, has 938,287 inhabit ...
with stops in Wilde and
Quilmes Quilmes () is a city on the coast of the Rio de la Plata, in the , on the southeast end of the Greater Buenos Aires, being some away from the urban centre area of Buenos Aires. The city was founded in 1666 and is the seat of the eponymous '' ...
and return at night - they will go to a station within three leagues of Chascomus', which became the terminal in December of that year. Those were the first . Another 500 () were added in the next twenty years.


Scottish National Antarctic Expedition

In late 1903, crew members of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition were hosted at the summer residence of W. G. Davis. Their ship, the ''Scotia'', had run aground on the
Rio de la Plata Rio or Río is the Portuguese and Spanish word for "river". The word also exists in Italian, but is largely obsolete and used in a poetical or literary context to mean "stream". Rio, RIO or Río may also refer to: Places United States * Rio, Fl ...
estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime enviro ...
, and was stuck for several days before it floated free and was assisted into the port of Buenos Aires by a
tugboat A tugboat or tug is a marine vessel that manoeuvres other vessels by pushing or pulling them, with direct contact or a tow line. These boats typically tug ships in circumstances where they cannot or should not move under their own power, suc ...
on December 24, 1903.


Notable residents

* Yesica Bopp


References

* Historical Records of Wilde, Municipality Lands Registry. Municipalidad de Avellaneda, Provincia de Buenos Aires. * a b c Historical Dictionary of Argentina. London: Scarecrow Press, 1978. * H.R.Stones, British Railways in Argentina 1860–1948, P.E.Waters & Associates, Bromley, Kent, England, 1993.


External links

* *
Soy de Wilde
{{Greater Buenos Aires Avellaneda Partido Cities in Argentina Populated places established in 1889 Populated places in Buenos Aires Province