Painting La Candelaria

Polka-Doting Carrera 3.

Today, the city organized a painting festival of some of La Candelaria's older homes, made ugly by neglect and graffiti. Hundreds of volunteers turned out, in what was a sort of street party.

Now, how long will the clean new walls last?

Painting a house.

Sponsored by Citibank!

'Please don't paint this wall.' 

Before the painting, many walls looked like this.

Many houses were graffitied.

A street packed with painters

These kids painted more than the walls.

A graffitied wall in the La Concordia neighborhood.

Painting an historic home.

Mayor Enrique Peñalosa, who is fighting a recall effort, showed up.

Piano playing in the street.

Cleaning up.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A Minor Example of Municipal Malfunction

Parque la Concordia today, and tomorrow, and the day after...

El Parque de La Concordia is a small public park located above the La Candelaria neighborhood, furnished with some swings, exercise bars and a futsal/basketball court. It's popular with neighborhood sports teams and dog walkers, as well as hippies and pot smokers. It's about the only substantial green area nearby.

At least, that's the way it was, until the city improvement folks got their hands on it.

In March, city workers blocked off the park and began renovation work due to be finished by July 1. July came and went, as did, Sept. 1, the next completion date. Since then, the city appears to have given up on publicly announcing such dates. I'd bet money that the park won't be completed until 2017.

Is this just incompetence? Bad planning? Or, is someone stretching this project out to milk all the money they can from it? After all, besides myself, nobody else seems to be paying attention to this project, even tho this was the neighborhood's only usable court for sports. (The only other one, a few blocks away, is disabled by a separate public construction project.)

Meanwhile, on hill hillside above, the Externado University is racing ahead with its construction of two towers, for which it deforested a large area, and which will block residents' views of the hillside.

The most infuriating part of all this? It was a perfectly good park before they started on it.

Will this history be repeated in the construction of Bogotá's metro system? Many prospective contractors and public officials are undoubtely salivating already. On the other hand, the metro project will recieve lots of media scrutiny, something which doesn't happen with small projects like this one.

And here's the topper: The electricity company clearly did their work, trusting, I suppose, that the contractors would actually finish by July. So, now we have and unused and useless park lighted up all night by two dozen super-bright bulbs, for the benefit of one security guard. This is a nation with blackouts and, until the recent rains, an impending electricity crisis.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Renaissance for Downtown Bogotá

Developers plan to demolish the Hotel Bacata and replace it
with a hotel/office complex that would include Colombia's
tallest building. 

Today's El Tiempo has this quite ugly story about downtown Bogotá's 'Seven Sins': traffic jams, homelessness, prostitutes, street vendors, missing sewer lids, abandoned buildings and garbage.

Prostitutas wait on Carrera 10, two blocks
from the presidential palace.

A common site - a bum rests in a doorway.

All of that's certainly true, and I'd add an eighth problem: street crime, particularly muggings. But I don't see it all as negative. For me, a colorful variety of human activity makes for a much more interesting place than, say, a shopping mall or a bland suburb.

We have lots of street vendors and homeless people in downtown because there's lots of movement and activity here. Go to some antiseptic suburb where nobody walks on the streets, where there are few stores or cultural attractions, and you won't find street vendors or beggars - or much else that's interesting, either. And, certainly, downtown suffers terrible traffic congestion - but that's not our fault. Downtown residents, I'm certain, drive less than many other Bogotanos, but we suffer traffic jams because others come here, or at least pass through here on their way from across town. And, once the TM work is finally finished, getting to downtown will become much easier.

Behind-schedule rapid bus lane work on 26th St, but a nearby TM station is almost completed. Behind it, the planned Colombian-Spanish Cultural Center. 

Work has begun on the Torre Bicentenario, 

near the recently-renovated Hotel Continental, 

both on Jimenez Ave. 

Look around and you'll see that downtown Bogotá is experiencing a rebirth, with more tourism, better infrastructure and lots of commercial investment. On 19th St., developers plan to demolish the venerable but aged Hotel Bacata and replace it with a hotel/office tower complex including Colombia's tallest building. Just a few blocks away, on Jimenez Ave., they've already started work on the Torre Bicentenario, a hotel/shopping complex. The planned tower is to be built across the street from the recently-renovated Hotel Continental, reborn as an apartment building.

The city also plans to expand Independence Park by extending it on a roof over 26th Ave. to the Museum of Modern Art. Planners also intend to turn the nearby Centro Pasteur, which now houses low-life bars, into a cultural center.

This huge gorge which was 26th St. is to be roofed over and turned into green space, greatly expanding Independence Park. 

That'll provide lots more green space and beautify the area, giving value to elegant by neglected buildings like this one just above the National Library.

This building near the National Library looks like it has a grand past, and may yet have a grand future. 

The Spanish Cultural Center - still only a beautiful plan. 

Less than a kilometer up Jimenez Ave. the Spanish government plans a Spanish Cultural Center. But the project hasn't progressed, likely because of Spain's economic collapse. But several nearby private universities, including the Jorge Tadeo and Los Andes U. have recently built large expansions, showing their confidence in downtown's future. And the Universidad Central is restoring the historic Faenza Theatre.

Jorge Tadeo U's almost-completed building.  

And the neighboring La Candelaria neighborhood, the city's historical, cultural and tourism center, has experienced an explosion in tourism since 2000. A decade ago, La Candelaria had one backpackers' hostel, while today it has dozens, and a new one seems to open every month. But La Candelaria has managed to preserve its quirky charm and artsy atmosphere.

The Casa Deco hotel, left, and the Bella Suiza Hostal, right, both in recently renovated buildings. 

Reading the offerings at La Candelaria's Teatro Libre. 

A storyteller entertains the crowd on La Plaza del Chorro, in La Candelaria. Try to find this sort of spontaneous cultural activity anywhere else. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours