La Boca. Buenos Aires - ARGENTINA

Direccion: Buenos Aires

The neighborhood of La Boca owes its name to that it is located at the mouth of the Riachuelo in the Río de la Plata.

La Boca was born as a natural harbor in the Riachuelo. From 1870, La Boca began to receive a large number of immigrants, mostly Italians (Genoese). The immigrants built their houses with zinc sheets and painted them with the surplus paintings in the workshops of the port, for that reason the houses were very colorful, nowadays that custom is maintained in some sectors of the neighborhood. The houses were called "conventillos", they were collective houses where many families lived sharing common spaces.

Due to the frequent floods and the fires that used to happen in the "conventillos", a group of neighbors in 1884 created the first Volunteer Firefighters of South America.

La Boca is the neighborhood most visited by foreign tourists but at the same time it is one of the poorest in the city. Its inhabitants have a strong sense of belonging to the neighborhood and often participate in different community activities.