Description

Buenos Aires. February 1936. Buenos Aires was melting. The heat was so intense that the air over Avenida Corrientes shimmered like a fever dream, distorting the shapes of horse-drawn carriages and boxy trams. In the heart of the capital, the massive excavation for the future Plaza de la República gaped open like the hollowed-out chest of an urban leviathan. Rust-colored dust hung over the construction site in a thick, suffocating cloud. It gritted between the teeth of hundreds of immigrant workers—Italians, Galicians, Poles—soaking into their sweat-stained canvas shirts. It settled like a dirty powder on the snow-white, starched cuffs of