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Caballito Neighbourhood, City of Buenos Aires
The neighbourhood of “Caballito” (“Little Horse”) was named after a brass weather vane with the shape of a little horse that used to be located on the top of an old “Pulperia”.
On February 15, 1821, Nicolas Vila, a Genoese immigrant, bought the block that is today located between Rivadavia, Emilio Mitre, Juan B. Alberdi and Victor Martinez Streets; building there a house with four rooms, and in one of them a Pulperia. Vila placed a flagpole at the entrance of the Pulperia, with a horse-shaped brass weather vane in it.
The figure was 0.56 m long and 0.35 m high, made in thick brass by a blacksmith named Guerrero in 1821.
When people arranged to meet in that corner they would mention as a meeting spot the “corner of the Caballito” and in that way the “corner of the Caballito” became the “neighbourhood of Caballito”.
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Drawing of the brass weather vane performed by Enrique Udaondo to complete the documentation received in Lujan's museum. Photo: Civil Asociation Historical Museum "Enrique Udaondo"
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After Vila’s death, the property was auctioned and the weather vane had several destinations until Manuel F. Domato and his family finally donated it to the Museum Complex in Lujan, were it is currently kept in the “Porteña” room of the Transportations Museum.
The donated weather vane has a bullet mark in its neck, which could have been made by a neighbour during a party, or by someone who was practicing target shooting with it.
Luis Perlotti designed a copy of the weather vane that he could not finish, and was finished after his death by a disciple of him, the sculptor Juan Carlos Ferraro.
The reproduction was inaugurated on November 3, 1969, in Plaza Primera Junta, the neighbourhood’s down town. It crowned – today the weather vane has disappeared- a flagpole that has in its base 2 bronze embossments by Perlotti, representing “La Porteña” locomotive and a wagon.
“La Porteña” locomotive was the first one to be used by a train in Argentina in 1857, linking today’s Colon Theatre with the neighbourhood of Floresta, going through the “Caballito”.
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Bronze on the base of the flagpole
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The wagon is a reference to the time in which the Pulperia of the Caballito was active.
Perlotti’s idea of honouring the neighbourhood of Caballito with a reproduction of the weather vane, after which it was named, was not a bad one. Today, the Pulperia of the Caballito is gone. The weather vane is no longer in the neighbourhood of Caballito. The street where the Pulperia used to be located was named Polvorines first, later Caballito and today Emilio Mitre. Consequently, if it weren’t because of the flagpole with Luis Perlotti’s bronzes on its base, today there would be no trace of what this neighbourhood was named after.
About this article...
Author of the article: Grondona Olmi, Verónica
Sources employed:
- www.museoperlotti.buenosaires.gob.ar/perlotti_historia.htm June 8, 2010
- Descubriendo el Patrimonio 02 - La veleta del Caballito. (“Discovering the legacy 02 – Caballito’s weather vane”). Published on Facebook’s page of the Museum Complex of Lujan on June 8, 2010.
- "El País que no Miramos" ("The Country we have not Seen"), a series of documentaries for television produced by Ivan Grondona. Archivo General de la Nación ("Argentina's National Archive").
Translated by: Veronica Grondona
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