11th Street Gets Humanized

Dining and dog walking on the street.

Calle 11 in La Candelaria has a new, human aspect these days in La Candelaria. It's not quite Paris, but a city experiment in the use of the public space, to see how people respond. So far, they appear to be responding well. The street is busy with tourists and locals walking, walking dogs and even eating. Artists offer their works. And you don't have to worry about evading cars or breathing fumes.

Officials seem to have realized, finally, that street artists are an asset, not a problem.

Hopefully, the city will decide to extend and expand this experiment. Bogotá has enough congested, noisy avenues, and officials have long talked of pedestrianizing the increasingly gridlocked La Candelaria neighborhood.

Art for sale on the street.

Pedestrians on the car-free street.

Giant chess on the street.

 

A painted street. Much of the street art is allusive of novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquéz.

Paris in Bogotá?

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Characters of Ave. Septima

A portrait painter and a band beside the El Tiempo building.

The pedestrian-only segment of Ave. Septima, from Plaza Bolivar to 25th St., is a colorful place, particularly on a sunny Sunday. Today, during a walk from just Jimenez to Plaza Bolivar, I passed performers, political activists, musicians and artists.

Not bad for a place which was known mostly for noise, pollution and traffic hazards.

Luis, who's running for president on his bicycle, beside the memorial to Jorge Eliecer Gaitan.

A comedian/female impersonator.

A dancing marionette.

A sidewalk human rights display. 

Crowd watching the marionette show.

Bicyclists pass by on their way to Plaza Bolivar.

A man performs tremendous feats with broken glass and fire. 

A knight mime.

A monster mime. 

This painter was raffling off his work. 

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The 'Trouble' With Ave. Septima

Pedestrians on Ave. Septima, where the churches are lighted for Christmas. 

Retailers on Ave. Septima are suing the city to eliminate the avenue's pedestrianization policy, which they say has reduced their sales. But I wonder what they're thinking on a night like tonight, when the main problem is finding room to walk on the crowded avenue.

Pedestrians look into a shoe store window. 

Walking under the Christmas lights. 

Watching a city video about cleaning up the Rio Bogotá.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Street Life on La Septima

As part of a school project for the private and elite Los Andes University, which to its credit requires its students to go out into the real world and do things, these students did an art project today about the history and future of Ave. Septima.

Fortunately, la Septima, thanks to its recent pedestrianization, has no shortage of authenticity and characters.

This young woman was hip hop dancing for tips.

Nearby, older men whiled the afternoon away on Las Nieves Plaza with a tinto.

A man sold fake, home-made rats.

He had a trick of scaring people by flinging the fake rats at them.

A few blocks down the street this man was selling tiny cardboard whistles.

The whistles sold fast, and cheap. But I couldn't get mine to work.

Three children wait on Las Nieves Plaza for their mother, who was gluing posters on walls.

Vendors on a sidewalk. The man on the left is selling snail slime, which is supposed to be good for skin problems.

A clarinetist plays in front of the Jorge Eliecer Gaitan Theatre.

The street reflected in one of the Gaitan Theatre's windows.

Pedestrians see the world's wonders in stereoscopic viewers.

Buttons for sale.

The sidewalk as art gallery.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours