Our campus is in the middle of a cement park. The business street of São Paulo, the Paulista Avenue, is now, also, a leisure street. The town hall decided to be closed for cars all Sundays, from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. That is a trial to decrease the traffic and stimulate people to have a leisure time outdoors.
The mayor of Sao Paulo, before promulgating the decision, visited Paris on the day that the French mayor, Anne Hidalgo, closed the Champs-Élysées Avenue. She wanted not just to decrease the traffic but to decrease the pollution, too. The city got full of people who have made good use of the city in a different way than before.
During the weekdays, we just see people wearing their work clothes, suits and high heels, with serious expression walking really fast to be on time for their work functions. But now we have a brand new scenery on Sundays. Families, couples, teenagers and friends go for a walk; they observe the city with an observed view, investigating the details, discovering treasures.
They are attracted by the cultural things that can be found along the street and the sensation of being alive, replacing the cars that occupy Paulista every day, being them the gear that provides the movement, searching for health and happiness.
Although Sao Paulo has lots of parks, people use the avenue as a park. There are many people riding their bikes, playing, jumping rope, sun bathing. Cultural activities can be found, music band are distributed by the sidewalk, playing different styles of music.
One of the Sundays, theater students were presenting a musical play, calling the attention for their wonderful work, making people stop what they were doing to watch time, the curiosity that people had was like an invitation to search for more information paying attention on the flyers.
In a city that anyone has time to hear the others, a man proved that is just a practice that we have to have with a lot of patience. He wrote a poem based on the people’s lives story. Some minutes hearing the person a wonderful and philosophic poem enchant the observers. With a typewriter and some napkins he made his art.
The famous antiquity fair located under MASP (Museum of Art of São Paulo) attracts the visitors. The homesickness makes people walk along the corridors looking for photographic cameras that are rare, porcelain plates and vases from the 50/60’s decades, toys that marked the lives from children from the 60’s until the 90’s.
A new attraction is the gazebo that stays on the street behind MASP with a view to 9 de Julho Avenue.
Down the stairs, the gazebo is a wonderful place for those who want to relax. There works a café with an extensive corridor with a wooden counter for the visitors have a coffee and goods snacks looking the view, 9 de Julho Avenue.
Our campus is number 900 of Paulista, we are on the stage of manifestations, important events and now of a park and an innovator lifestyle. Just one step and we are part of it!