The sidewalks of Barão de Iguape street

disputes in the implementation of road equipment in São Paulo at the end of the 19th century

Abstract

This article explores the relation between public authority and the population of São Paulo in the implementation of road equipment in the period between 1886 and 1905, analyzing how it impact on the “urban making” of this city. Based in a case study of summonses to residents of Barão de Iguape street, located in the central neighborhood of Liberdade, to construct the sidewalks in front of their buildings in 1904, we discussed how were understood the responsibilities on the urban organization in that historical moment. For this, we will approach their conflicts and negotiations, expressed in the documentation of the “Obras particulares”, of the Historical Archive of São Paulo. The option of working with a generally neglected element of infrastructure, which is considered minor in comparison with the other improvements that were being implemented, characteristic that is also expressed in the central documentation of this article, is precisely to apprehend the relationship between these actors at the level of daily life. We are confronted with a kind of relationship between these agents that was quite recurrent in the city since the colonial period: a sharing of the action of the public authority and of the inhabitants for the making of the city. The pavement of the city’s streets and the construction of the sidewalks is one of the examples of how this relationship materialized in the urban landscape, making complex the dimensions of the political disputes involved in the urbanization of São Paulo in the late nineteenth century.