My town Friday Shoot-out / A Town Plaza

The Praça Presidente Getúilo Vargas – as you can tell right away a plaza is Praça in Portuguese – is in the central part of Nova Friburgo. I found the name of the Praça by enlarging my Google Map on the left side-panel of ‘Flowers’, then out of curiosity did a web search to see just who Getúilo Vargas was that he was honored to have the plaza named after him. (does that sentence sound right?) –

Wait until you hear this. “... Vargas was the governor of Rio Grande do Sul in 1928…. he ran for president in 1930 and lost…. then started a revolution to get into office. …. upon becoming ‘president’ he eliminated constitutional checks on the executive power, deprived the once-dominant state parties of public function, and gained control over political …. Vargas had made himself a dictator over Brazil….” and now get this, “in 1932 another revolution took him out of office but in 1934 he was elected by a ‘Constituent assembly’ for a four year term…. in 1937 he proclaimed the ESTADO Novo (new state) which was like a European fascist dictatorship. ‘It imposed censorship and relied on a powerful secret police apparatus….” (http://www.thenagain.info)

I am not sure why but I have this credulous feeling in the back of my mind that he is still honored in Brazil. What is this that Brazilians are thinking…. or don’t they know who this man was?

Boy I got way off track…. the Praça is on the location of the old railroad station (1873-1960) and if you look at the photos you can see how the two tracks ran on either side of what is now the ‘north’ bus station that services only local Friburgo busses. The plaza is well maintained by the city. There are benches for sitting under the old trees, paths for strolling, play area for the younger children, on Saturday and some holidays there is a street market with locally made crafts, there is a water fountain, a cabana, statues of famous people (yep Vargas) an area for concerts, the tourist information center and, most important, an ice cream store right across the street. Enjoy the photos.