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3 1 UBICACIÓN: COSTANERA NORTE A METROS DE CIUDAD UNIVERSITARIA. MONTSERRAT The Plaza de Mayo is the public space par excellence in which Argentina’s collective memories, conflicts, and disputes all converge . In the midst of the military dictatorship, the mothers of the disappeared defied the dictates of state terrorism and took over this site, restoring it to its function as a spatial metaphor for politics and freedom of expression . Their presence in the square marked the beginning of its recovery as a central space within Argentine democracy and political history . The families of the disappeared chose to voice their demands from the Plaza de Mayo because of its history and symbolic significance . For more than two centuries this square has been marked by political and social events of distinct qualities and meanings, gradually emerging as a key site for the waging of political disputes where the memories of past struggles have also left their traces . In the twentieth century alone, this Plaza has witnessed multiple and even conflicting political expressions . It was one of the spaces where labor and leftist organizations expressed their dreams of social transformation and celebrated key events such as May 1, or International Workers’ Day . In 1916 it welcomed the crowds who cheered on Hipólito Yrigoyen, the first president 1 . Plaza de Mayo LOCATION: BETWEEN AV. RIVADAVIA, HIPÓLITO YRIGOYEN, BOLÍVAR, AND BALCARCE TRANSPORTATION: SUBWAY STATIONS: PLAZA DE MAYO (A LINE), CATEDRAL (D LINE), BOLÍVAR (E LINE), PERÚ (E LINE). BUSES: 6, 7, 9, 10, 17, 22, 24, 26, 28, 29, 45, 50, 59, 64, 67, 70, 74, 86, 91, 98, 105, 111, 126, 152. A. Alsina Azo par do Balca rce Bolívar carabela s Chaca buco Av. Belgrano Moreno Defen sa Florid a Av. Ing. Hue rgo Maipú Esmera lda Av. Paseo Colón Perú Piedras Rec onq uist a A v . P t e . J . A . R o c a A v. R o sa le s Av. Pte. R. Sáenz Peña San Martí n Tacuarí Sarmiento Pte. Perón Bmé. Mitre Est. Pza. de Mayo Est. Bolívar Est. Belgrano Est. Piedras Est. Catedral Est. Perú 1 LÍNEA A LÍNEA D L Í N E A E elected by universal male suffrage in truly free elections . On October 17 , 1945, huge crowds of mainly industrial workers marched into this square from the suburbs to show their support for Colonel Juan Domingo Perón, who had been imprisoned by the military . This event became a founding moment in the rise of Peronism, the political movement that profoundly transformed Argentine politics in the middle of the twentieth century . THE IMAGE OF THE HEADSCARF, SYMBOL OF THE MADRES DE PLAZA DE MAYO, IS PAINTED AROUND THE MAY PYRAMID (PIRÁMIDE DE MAYO). 4 The Plaza de Mayo was thus transformed into a kind of witness to these ambiguous expressions of desire for democracy and social justice . Yet precisely because it occupied this privileged place within Argentine political culture, it also became the staging ground for authoritarian policies and attacks on civil rights, often with the approval and backing of broad sectors of society . Thus, in 1930 crowds packed into the Plaza de Mayo to welcome the coup launched by General José Félix Uriburu against the Radical Party government of Hipólito Yrigoyen . And in June 1955 naval aircraft bombarded the seat of government, the Casa Rosada (see “Mayor Bernardo Alberte garden, ” p . 238), as a prelude to the coup that would put an end to Perón’s second presidential term on September 16th of that year . In the 1960s and 1970s the Plaza became a key space in the deepening political , social, and cultural conflicts that marked Argentine politics . It became much more than a mere backdrop for the crowds who filled it for political demonstrations . The coup d’etat of 1976 The coup of March 24, 1976, brought an end to these years of mass mobilization, when civil society and political organizations had occupied the city’s public spaces . The coup brought with it the ratification of the state of siege* in force since November 1974 and the systematic deployment of state terror . The Plaza de Mayo was completely empty as the new military government broadcast its communiqués at dawn on the morning of the coup . State terror quickly dissolved the social and community bonds that had been formed in the heat of political disputes, restructuring relationships between people around feelings of fear...

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