ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 2, 1997 TAG: 9701310003
SECTION: TRAVEL PAGE: 8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK MATHEWS\NEWSDAY
LESS than five miles into the 30-minute taxi ride from the airport to vibrant, beautiful Buenos Aires, the world's other ``Big Apple,'' there is a turnoff marked ``Ciud ad de Evita'' - Evita City.
It is a community of homes and apartments built, furnished and given away to thousands of working-class families by Argentina's first lady, Eva Peron, in the late 1940s.
``Que piensa usted de Evita?'' I ask the driver, diving into my assignment.
With all the attention being focused on Eva Peron because of Alan Parker's $60 million movie version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's pop sociology opera, and the Walt Disney Studios' lavish merchandising of it, Buenos Aires figures to see a boost in tourism. But even with a new Evita Peron van tour running through the capital, Maria Eva Duarte de Peron is hard to find.
``Evita?'' the middle-aged driver says, looking at me in his rearview mirror. ``In Argentina, seor, there are many opinions about Evita. Some people think she was very good, others think she was very bad.''
``And you, what do you think?'' I ask again.
``I think she was very good.''
Evita City, still home to many of Eva's beneficiaries, is only the most obvious physical reminder of her social crusade. Using her considerable influence with her husband, Juan Peron, Evita also won women the right to vote and spearheaded legislation calling for compulsory public education. She died young, like Jesus, at the age of 33, of cancer and left half a nation of Catholics pleading for her sainthood.
Buenos Aires has undergone massive changes, both politically and physically, since Evita's death in 1952 and Peron's ouster in a military coup three years later. Argentina went through a series of cruel military dictatorships, failed economic policies and the embarrassment of the Falklands War. At the same time, so many of the city's landmarks were being replaced by glass skyscrapers that Parker had to take the film and its stars, Madonna and Antonio Banderas, to Budapest, Hungary, to get the right period atmosphere for the street scenes.
It's no coincidence that old Buenos Aires looks European. Argentina was colonized by Spain, but Buenos Aires was built up in the late 1800s, after its independence and during the influx of millions of Italian, French and German immigrants.
``Portenos'' (port people), as natives of Buenos Aires call themselves, have a wide variety of haunts for their extremely active social lives. The older districts of La Boca, San Telmo and Centro, where a teen-age Evita begged for handouts before getting started as a radio and movie actress, are much as they were when she arrived by train from rural Junin in 1934. But uptown, in the gentrified old section of La Recoleta, and along the Rio de la Plata, where a series of two-story brick warehouses has been converted into chic boutiques and restaurants, yuppie portenos party the nights away.
Still, with unemployment even higher today than a half-century ago, the issues separating the privileged from the working classes are as alive as ever, and so is the great divide of opinion on Evita.
``There are just two views of Evita,'' says Sonia Belosiotzky, the guide for Buenos Aires' new and only Evita Peron tour. ``People idolize her, and people hate her.''
``And you?''
``I am not supposed to give my opinion ... but I hate her.''
``Evita,'' the Broadway musical and the movie, perpetuates the conservative view of Evita as a calculating peasant whore who climbed the social ladder on her back and, once she gained power as the wife of the president, nearly bankrupted the country by redistributing the wealth. She was loathed by the military because of her use of her untitled power, by the intelligentsia because of her lack of education and by high society because of her uncouth speech and manners.
Naturally, workers saw her as a female Robin Hood, and her ability to unite them made her essential to Peron's populist administration. While doling out charity, she bought herself millions of pesos worth of furs, jewelry and designer clothes, telling her people she was pampering herself on their behalf, and she got no complaint from them.
Given her place in Argentina's history, and her notoriety throughout the world, a visitor might expect to find parks and schools named after her, and among its scores of public monuments, at least a few in her honor. But aside from Evita City, there is paltry physical evidence of her existence.
In fact, I spent most of my first day in Buenos Aires searching for anything with Evita's name or image on it. Judging by the displays in the numerous T-shirt and souvenir shops along Calle Florida, the city's blocked-off shopping district, what tourists are taking home, besides leather and silver goods, are images of tango dancers and gauchos.
In each of the shops, where tango dolls compete with the ponchos and leather bolas shipped in from the pampas, I ask, ``What do you have with Evita?''
``Nada.''
``Why not?''
``Nobody asks. Why would anyone want that?''
Finally, at La Carta, a boutique gift shop near Plaza San Martin, I find a T-shirt with the name ``Evita'' and a multiple blowup of the 10-peso stamp that bore her likeness in the days when 10 pesos weren't worth a dime. (Today, a peso is worth exactly a dollar, and you can get by here on American money alone.)
At the San Telmo flea market, a Sunday ritual held in tango-happy Dorrego Square, I found a few copies of Evita's autobiography, ``The Mission of My Life,'' for sale ($40 for a first edition), a few yellowed copies of the first lady's official photo ($10) and some bad photocopies of pictures that appeared in newspapers and magazines ($8).
The only item of any obvious value is a solid bronze 10-inch plaque, bearing the likeness of Evita, signed by the artist A.D. Polau and worn in ways that bear out the seller's claim that it is an ``antigua.'' She wants 60 pesos for it (how could I resist?).
At one time, almost every office and store in the country displayed images of the Perons. As their egos and hunger for devotion grew, they made it compulsory. After the 1955 coup, displaying loyalty or public affection for the Perons was outlawed, and most of the evidence was presumably destroyed.
Plaza de Mayo, the original town square of Buenos Aires, is the first stop on the Evita Peron tour, which Belosiotzky tells me was begun in December in anticipation of a crush of Evita-seeking tourists. On this particular Sunday morning there is no crush. The tour includes Belosiotzky, her driver Rafael and me.
Turning and looking west down Avenida de Mayo, we see in the distance the domed Congreso building, where in 1952, hundreds of thousands of mourners lined up to kiss the glass plate separating them from the body of Evita. Eight people died in the scuffling for position in that queue.
The tour heads up Avenida de Mayo, stopping briefly at Cafe Tortoni, the city's famous hangout for poets and intellectuals. Evita wasn't one of them, but Agustin Magaldi, the tango singer who brought her from Junin to Buenos Aires when she was 15, often played there, and she was occasionally with him.
Rafael stops the van at the north end of Avenue 9 de Julio. It was on this unmarked site in 1951 that Evita, already dying from uterine cancer, faced one of the largest crowds ever assembled anywhere and was compelled by its persistence to accept the nomination for vice president that her husband had refused to offer her. She was later forced to withdraw.
The last stop on the tour, the cemetery of Recoleta, is a must for anyone visiting Buenos Aires, whether curious about Evita or not. Argentines have a unique fascination with the afterlife, and from the mid-19th century, the rich have been putting themselves to rest in accommodations suited for pharaohs.
The cemetery is a free visit, but inside, you're on your own. There's no one hawking maps to the stars' tombs, and though caretakers are used to pointing tourists in the direction of Evita, even Belosiotzky has trouble finding it. With its simple black marble facade, Evita's tomb is among the least imposing in the cemetery.
LENGTH: Long : 146 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: JACK MATHEWS/NEWSDAY. 1. The National Library in Buenosby CNBAires occupies the site of the old presidential residence, where Eva
Peron died. 2. The grave of Eva Peron's dance teacher is located in
Buenos Aires. 3. Eva Duarte met Juan Peron at Luna Park (left) in
Buenos Aires. With its simple black marble facade, 4. Evita's tomb
(below) is among the least imposing at the cemetery of Recoleta.
color.