Santiago: What’s New?

The massive earthquake and tsunami in 2010, and the destruction encased in the social “estallido” of 2019, were vivid reminders of how vulnerable valuable historical structures and areas in Chile really are.

On the one hand, we wait anxiously while some of the most important structures, once destroyed, take years, even decades, to be slowly rebuilt, and on the other, we try to visit those sites with national and local importance that are still standing, before they, too, are struck down by natural disasters or destruction from sheer man-made folly.

So, every year, having been away at our home in Virginia for nine months, we reappear on the scene in Chile, anxious to see what of importance has been built or changed while we were gone, but also what is new, the results of modernization, the emerging ideas of young entrepreneurs in Santiago’s urban scene.

My first outing to downtown Santiago was a morning at the law school of the Universidad de Chile, to attend a seminar organized by one of my wife’s nephews, Rodrigo, a philosophy professor at this major Chilean university. The topic was “The erosion of public confidence in important traditional institutions”, timely for many reasons not only in Chile but also throughout the world.

After a serious academic discussion on the topic, I stopped to take a look out over Santiago from the balcony where we had been meeting. The view was absolutely poignant given the discussion I had just heard.

The panoramic view from this balcony was of the iconic Plaza Italia, the center of the protests and the destruction called the “estallido social” of 2019. Five years after that event, the view from above, of the plaza, shows the massive re-conformation of this important intersection of several major streets, including the main east-west artery (named La Alameda/Providencia/Apoquindo as it crosses the city), and Vicuña Mackenna, running north to south. It is where the historic statue of General Baquedano stood for decades, until it was defaced, destroyed and ultimately taken down for reparations after the estallido.

Anyway, while the discussion runs on and on as to what to do with the General and his horse, the entire area around the old plaza is being turned into a type of esplanade linking Parque Forestal, Parque Bustamante, and Parque Balmaceda into what could turn out to be a major improvement for vehicular and foot traffic in that whole area that today is extremely congested and not especially welcoming.

In the center still sits Baquedano’s plinth, in splendorous white marble reminding everyone who looks, of the unfinished business of the Plaza Italia.

The starting point of my relationship with Chile is Eduardo Frei Montalva (RIP), President of the country from 1964 to 1970, and he continues to be an eminence in my thoughts about this country and its people. 

During my first year in Chile as a 23-year-old Peace Corps Volunteer working at the national forestry institute, Instituto Forestal, I shared an apartment with my colleague Tom (soon called Tomás, as he quickly went “native”, at least nominally), who also worked at the institute.

Our apartment was within walking distance (a long walk) of the institute, and one way to make the trip was to wind through the streets from our Ñuñoa neighborhood, into the more upscale municipality of Providencia, walking past the home of President Frei. I recall wondering, each time I turned the corner to cross in front of his home on Calle Hindenburg, “Would he be coming out of the home to get in his car, would I be able to see him?” “Would there be lots of reporters waiting to see who arrived to visit the president?”

But more often than not, there was no activity to be seen. And I would just keep walking on to the institute,  left to wonder what the President would be doing that day.

Now, Frei’s presidential residence is a museum, slightly expanded to allow for visitors, and for quite some time I have wanted to make a visit. So, as soon as we arrived in Santiago this year, we did just that, almost fifty-eight years after my first stroll past his home.

The home still reflects the modest life style of that neighborhood and of the Frei Montalva family at that time, the late 1960s.

The president’s library and study are especially fascinating, while simple and unassuming. These were not glamorous people, nor were those glamorous times, but rather steeped in a sober sophistication almost lost in today’s Chile. Besides several thousands of treasured books, the library is adorned with memorabilia of the times, including a piece of lunar rock given to Frei in 1970 when the crew of Apollo XII visited Chile.

It took me back to that day, July 20, 1969, when we all watched the exciting Apollo 11 lunar landing. I watched on a small TV at the family home of my soon-to-be spouse, Ximena, with her mother and sisters, all way more enthusiastic than I. It was a fun time to be an American in Chile; for a while we were applauded, until the gloom of the Viet Nam war again overtook Chilean’s feelings about our country.

The walk-through tour of the museum took no more than an hour; one highlight was the dining room with the dinner table fully extended and set with the best official cutlery and china, just as it was for the historic day in November 1968 that Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip sat down with President Eduardo Frei and his wife for dinner.

Well, the table was not really fully extended the day we visited, nor was it exactly the way it was when the Queen dined with the Freis. To make the room more manageable now, with visitors passing by and wanting to get up close to the table, two of the places and their seats have been removed, allowing for more space around the table. The two places that are not there now, those of the Queen’s personal assistant and the President’s sister, Irene, have been quietly removed from the table, a social culling for the better good of museum efficiency.

(There is always room for an anecdote in the Daveschilelives blog: On one of the days the Queen was in Santiago, I and my Peace Corps colleagues Chuck, Neal, and Jane decided to walk into the lobby of the Hotel Carrera, the grand hotel right on the square in front of the Palacio de la Moneda, the presidential palace, thinking that we might see the Queen, or to get a pisco sour, I’m not sure which.

As we walked in, she came down the large stairway leading to the front door, floated by us, and gracefully disappeared into a big, black, fancy horsedrawn carriage. We were told she was off to the racetrack, the Club Hípico, to observe a special race to be run in her honor. As I recall, the four of us, also racetrack afficionados, decided to tag along. Of course, we had to walk a few blocks to a bus stop, take one or maybe two buses, then walk a bit more, to get to the track, then talk our way in without paying.

She was on royalty time, we plebeian slow time, so we arrived after the special race, and well after the Queen had gone on to another event. But we did see the Queen, really.)

It just so happened that when Ximena and I visited the Frei Museum, there was a temporary exhibit in the entrance hallway of the cartoonist Pepo, creator of a most famous Chilean character, Condorito. Pepo (René Ríos Boettiger), was a very close friend of President Frei.

His cartoon character, Condorito, a very astute, personable, sometimes mischievous, young condor, never uttered any partisan or controversial political commentary that might offend; with one notable exception. In one strip, Condorito made the bold statement that any great president of Chile would necessarily have a long nose. Of course, Condorito himself has a notable beak, but more to the point, so did Pepo’s friend, President Frei.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With Santiago emptying out as residents flock to the beach and south to the lakes, we took advantage of a beautiful summer day to venture into the center of Santiago to visit the newly reopened Casa Colorada.

This colonial home, built in the 1770s, served as the home of Mateo de Toro y Zambrano, who walked from this home to preside over the open Cabildo on September 18, 1810, in which Chile essentially declared their independence from Spain.

Subsequently, the building served as general quarters of the national army, and then home of Lord Thomas Cochrane, British naval admiral nicknamed “Wolf of the seas”, who also led Chile’s navy in its fight for independence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I was living in Santiago in the late 1960s, this building and the one next to it, the colonial residence of Manuel Montt, the first civilian president of Chile, housed internal warrens of small shops and storage cubicles from which people (most upright but probably some thieves) sold all types of wares and collectables. We enjoyed strolling through these mazes in search of old stamps, coins, books, and whatever Chileans were trying to download.

Now, however, the Casa Colorada has been nicely refurbished, at least the first floor, to house the newly-designed Museum of Santiago. A set of very didactic displays walk the visitor through the history of Santiago’s founding to today’s modern, bustling city of almost 10 million inhabitants. (I am always amazed by the fact that there are only two US cities larger than Santiago: Los Angeles and New York). The new museum explains the trends the city has gone through in not only political and structural terms, but also social and cultural.

Right across the street from the entrance to the Casa Colorada is the classic Paseo Phillips; it holds memories of fancy restaurants, neat shops, and the apartment where President Jorge Allessandri lived his bachelor life, walking several busy blocks to and from his office in the Palacio de la Moneda.

We took a walk ourselves, after visiting the Casa Colorada, passing by the Basilica de La Merced (unfortunately closed when we were there), and on past the Santa Lucia hill to a favorite neighborhood of ours, Lastarria.

After a light lunch at the Bocanariz wine bar, we ventured into the recently opened but as yet un-refurbished church of la Veracruz, one of several historic Catholic churches that were burned during the 2019 estallido. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The structure of the church was not weakened, but most everything inside the structure was burned, leaving the walls and many permanent statues blackened in the blaze. It opens now for mass, the parishioners seated on folding plastic chairs; it is a sad reminder of the mindless destruction of that unfortunate event.

A caretaker in the church who we spoke with, explained to us with great pride that they have finally obtained approval for the full renovation project, only now, about five years after the fire. The renovation itself will take ten years.

If you read my posting written before we traveled to Chile this year, you may remember that I wanted to make a visit to the inside of the classic Palacio de la Moneda, the Presidential Office building bombed in the coup of 1973, but now fully restored to its prior elegant state. Well, I waited too long to get reservations, so this will not happen.

But instead, we made a Sunday midday visit to the Centro Cultural La Moneda, a fantastic cultural space built under the Plaza de la Ciudadanía, which sits between the Palacio and Avenida Libertador Bernardo O’Higgins.

This cultural center has several coffee shops, a high-end Chilean crafts store and working areas for hands-on activities for children who want to learn about traditional artisans and how they crafted their goods. It is a place that started out several years ago kind of slowly, but has blossomed into a first-class cultural center.

 

The day we were there, we enjoyed an exhibit of paintings by Chilean artist José Venturelli, a commemoration of 100 years from his birth. Venturelli; Humanism and Social Commitment, is a series of almost 500 paintings from the periods he lived in Chile, Cuba, Switzerland, and China.

He was fanatical in his desire to show the pain and agony of the abuse of power, by governments and individuals. Hence, his themes often reveal a revolutionary spirit, which he developed especially during his stays in Cuba and China. He lived the last years of his life in exile in Switzerland, but died on a visit to China.

Venturelli is deemed one of the most important artists from Chile and Latin America in the twentieth century. He collaborated with the Mexican mural painter David Siqueiros, specifically on the well-regarded mural in the Escuela Mexico in Chillán, in central Chile.

Because he was a well-regarded Chilean painter who resided in China from 1952-59, he helped promote the opening of diplomatic relations between China and Chile, in 1970. As such, Chile was the first Latin American country to have diplomatic relations with China, relations which remain strong to this day.

 

So after all, in our excursions into some of the historical places in Santiago, we found much to be pleased about. Chileans have been through a lot, in the more than half a century I have known the country, and every time they appear to be facing impossible odds and unfortunate destructive events, they pull themselves up and fix things.

The Eduardo Frei Montalva Casa Museo, the restored Casa Colorada, the planned refurbishing of the church of La Veracruz, and the fabulous Centro Cultural La Moneda with its exhibits of world class Chilean artists like José Venturelli speak volumes in favor of a society with pride, energy, and a bright future.

Maybe they will even figure out how to get Baquedano back where he belongs in Plaza Italia.

 

Posted in Santiago, Chile, on March 12, 2025