DANGERS of Recoleta

gsi16386

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Hey all,

I was out in Recoleta last night around 5AM and saw a fight there for a second time...fair enough. Happens all the time, but the thing that really concerned me about this time was the lack of police patrol or NO police patrol at all. A guy was knocked out on the side of the street for five minutes, no exaggeration, and there were no police or ambulance to be found. I honestly thought the guy was dead.

The people that patrol these streets are the guys you pass by handing out cards for the local brothels. Please use caution when heading down to Recoleta these hours and beware that if someone does decide to pick you out for a mugging, you're toast. After last night, I think I'll limit my time spent in that area, but that's just me. I thought I'd share my story to raise awarement...
 
Sounds like 5 AM is not a safe time to be out on the streets. Mind you, that probably goes anywhere... Thankfully, I am usually well tucked up in my bed at that time :)
 
gsi16386 said:
A guy was knocked out on the side of the street for five minutes, no exaggeration, and there were no police or ambulance to be found. I honestly thought the guy was dead.

I assume you called the police and an ambulance??
 
I speak very broken spanish and wouldn't have the first clue as to how to contact the police. There were well over 30 people outside watching this go down and I saw plenty of people on their phones. Hopefully they were calling the police, but that's besides the point. There were 0 police officers out there and this is a major entertainment district, mostly for extranjeros no less...

I agree that 5AM is extremely late to be out and there are going to be tons of dangers at that hour, but for those that like to go out on a Friday/Saturday night, things don't even get started until 3AM. I just thought I'd share my story and take from it as you wish....
 
I think there is an influx of people from the nearby villa coming in to Recoleta at night.

You didn't say where in Recoleta this happened, but the guys hanging out on street corners throwing out the nets for the local brothels are most densely located around the cemetary (I'm talking about Recoleta density - there are plenty of other parts of town with these guys hanging out). So I'm assuming it was somewhere around there.

I mention the cemetary area/Village part of Recoleta because since the mall and movie theaters closed down it has attracted, at times, unsavory elements directly from the nearby villa. They are coming to a relatively good neighborhood full of tourists from a pretty bad place.

The "touts" (as we call the guys handing out cards to people for the brothels) certainly aren't going to mess with the criminals coming over and the criminals aren't going to mess with the touts because there are too many of them and they are protected, not-easy targets.

The police, for whatever reason, seemed to have left the area about the time the barriers went up around the mall area...

The villa is just on the other side of Libertador, past the train tracks. 15-20 minute walk.

BTW - I recently heard, from someone who lives in that villa (a friend, not someone I met on the street) that Cristina wants to "buy" the buildings from the "owners" in the villa there. From what I understand, the deal is with the people who actually built the buildings themselves, and I doubt anyone who has "bought" an apartment or a store local, say, would have any recourse to recoup anything. Supposedly the buildings are going to be "rebuilt" and I was told that the previous "owners" will get to occupy the some space of the building from then on.

I was also told that there was a counter-proposal/project being floated about by Macri (she thought) to clear the whole area out and sell it to some rich Americans.

Both ideas sounded pretty strange to me - and I haven't seen any news on this.

My understanding is that the area has been occupied for at least decades and that Argentine administrations have attempted before to clear them out, without success.
 
i think you'll actually find that if you are walking round more residential ('de barrio') and less 'touristy' areas such recoleta, providing you are not dressed like a prime chump you will on the whole be fine walking in the early hours of the morning and not encounter much in the way of hassle, preferably with company: belgrano, colegiales, flores, villa urquiza, parque chacabuco, villa devoto, to name a few. i think there is a need for common sense to prevail here. simply put, avoid the obvious affluent/tourist areas at stupid o'clock in the morning.
 
What's going on with the Village Recoleta? I haven't been there in ages.
 
I was leaving Pagana which is right next to Puerto Suelo in the cementario district. Again, fights are going to happen, that's expected. It's also a lot younger crowd too, so there's even more possibilities for the dumb young kids to fight. However, i just wish there was more of a police presence (or any police presence for that matter).

Thanks for the post ElQueso. I didn't realize they were called Touts and you offered some pretty interesting info. Thank you!
 
SaraSara said:
What's going on with the Village Recoleta? I haven't been there in ages.

I have a friend that lives on Uriburu, right across from the mall. It's definitely coming along, they're working on it everyday (and it's about to drive my friend crazy!).

The website for Village Recoleta Cinema still says it will be finished in May, but I have doubts about it. The last time I really paid attention to their progress they had taken everything off the outside of the building (the facia and windows and such) and were working on the inside.

Maybe more like August, September?
 
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