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I n August 1980 I started as a freshman at the Universidad de Los
Andes' Law School with a burdensome adolescence and a rucksack loaded
with leftist leanings. I wasn't the only one. A few short years after
the Berlin Wall's fall nobody, except for the Colombian Communist Party,
stood up for the Soviet Union, but then, many folks still believed that
Cuba was living evidence that revolution was possible in Latin America
and the only alternative to achieve and maintain awesome social
conquests. During those days the Turbay Administration was half-way
through its term. Osuna's caricatures depicted the goings-on in the
Military Institutes Brigate dungeons; the nation's second vote getting
party still enjoyed "a proper and equal" share of the spoils of "burocracy",
pursuant to the National Front rotational arrangement and Luis Carlos
Galan was beginning his crusade, still not concluded, against political
bosses and government corruption.
But the Bogota we knew during the eighties, already of age, was still
one city. Ten years later, Bogota had become many cities, some modem
and attractive, some even with character, many were modern and false,
with not very many pretensions, most extramural, miserable, so poor that
the city prefers to ignore them, as illegitimate daughters. All
expanding, palpitating, expectant.
With its peculiar demolishing growth, Bogota tore down, as it had
systematically during the past decades, parts of itself: the twp lane
Camera Septima (Seventh Avenue), the Fifteenth, the Almirante Admiral
Theater, the Scala Theater, all in the Chapinero, La Soledad and
Teusaquillo residential neighborhoods, the downtown cafes, Buchholz
Library, El Lago (The Lake) and just plain strolling all gone.
Yes, above all else, the joy of strolling.
The new mega polis
The city echoed the old Palacio de la Camera's (Camera Palace) destiny:
converted into the Palacio Nariño (Nariño Palace), it expanded to the
sides, it became modem, it lit up, it became a bit more arrogant. But
also more prosperous, to the north. And, of course, poorer to the south.
The eighties came along with its huge power shovel and load of bricks,
decimating homes and untilled areas, banging open highways, starting to
give shape to the millennium-end City which we Bogotanos strive to find a
new language to love it with.
The City intensified its cruel advance to the south, southeast and
southwest. Carpetbagger developers refined the devilish art of selling
false dreams to migrants in comfortable installments. Homes in these
areas taste of other materials, they know the coldness of metals and the
whimsies of cardboard, they make-do against the mountain winds with
adjusted timbers and beer cases; winter always takes the upper hand
flowering the ground with its breath as well as sweeping away materials
as well as people.
The City also headed north. Middle class growth fed a cement and brick
charge to Niza, San Cristóbal Norte, Suba; developers easily focused on
its members: all of its Sunday outings to the north had something to do
with one Mr. Mazuera, a developer.
To the east the City crept up the mountains. Upper income neighbors
built their watch tower, panorama windowed homes: outside was the Sabana
de Bogota (Bogota Savannah) world, inside hung paintings. Ariza's or
Barrera's savannah, Dario Morales' women, Juan Cardenas' ghosts,
Obreg6n's blue fish, Botero's almost sad looking women-folk.
Facing the assault of troubles, about to lose its Roman peace and unity,
the City fell back on the Middle Ages. The new Ages a la Umbberto Eco,
residential neighborhoods became fortresses, with guards watching their
gates, ensuring the safety of the feudal lords inside. Walking along the
paths was a passer-by's own risk and responsibility.
 A
new after-dark City
Adolescent night life had been lacking. During the seventies hippies
lounged along El Lago smoking pot and preaching peace while at Calle
Sesenta (Sixtieth Street) consumer society consumed them, slowly, sans
filter. Bogota was like a large village without a river. except for
movie lovers, others had few entertainment options.
During the sixties pizzerias arrived and the "cream helados" (ice cream
parlors) faded, and Camera Quince (Fifteenth Avenue) witnessed the
automobile's arrival as part of the middle and upper class kids'
celebration of life, just as in the United States during the fifties.
Later came the first sedate cafes and German beer halls, where one could
gulp beer from huge mugs; shopping malls like Unicentro, with its
futuristic airs, where it was never daytime, and four acceptable
discotheques opened their doors, reflecting Bogota's dual identity: two
"gringo" and two "salsa" joints.
Bogota at night
I recall 82th Street's beginnings with just two or three places.
Asphyxiating Bogota coexisted there -a typical neighborhood store on 82
and 13th Avenue, one of those selling "monas" (blondes) for scrapbooks,
Imperial cigarettes by the unit, condensed milk by the can, razor blades
and Domecq brandy in flasks- with prosperous Bogota of the eighties: the
Cafe Imperial and the Saint-Sim6n, and the Black Label and Von
Richthoffen bars.
The struggle between these two cities, the grocery-stored and Haitian "metre"
French- restauranted one, was asphyxiating, but easily defeated a third
Bogota: the city of residential neighborhoods.
We had to patiently explain a few things when we opened Cassis Bar.
-Listen young man -the Chapinero Quarter Inspector admonished while
trying to understand our liquor license request- a bar is, how can I say
it, where women of the world... What are we talking about?
-No mister Inspector. Nothing of the sort. It's like a restaurant, but
rather to have a couple of drinks with girlfriends and listen to Seru
GIrAn or the lovely singer Fleetwood Mac.
-And you'll wait on tables? -asked our the spinster aunt while we really
went nuts trying new cocktail recipes-. Gracious, what a repelling
thing!
In just a short spell the street was full of bars. Bars featuring
sixties rock'n roll. Bars featuring our local incipient rock tunes and
the more popular Argentine versions. Bars featuring jazz and classical
music.
It was much like a coup d'etat against those who had taken the after
hours to themselves, simply not wanting to let loose.
Already by 1986 there were more than eighty bars and restaurants between
78th Street and 90th Street, which number has exploded beyond anything
expected. During the prosperous eighties young people were lured by the
Zona Rosa (Rose Quarter), and not just those middle and upper class
folk. A Soda Stereo Group concert in 1987 along 82th Street attracted
hordes, and the North Quarter suddenly realized (horror of horrors?)
that rock made no class distinctions.
Special District Local Hour, Sociedad Andnima (Corporation), Kraken: all
names behind which one could open the City's heart with an electric
guitar and a mike. All followed Pyyo and Juancho's footsteps, the
Ilimited Company's footsteps, everyone behind La Cure's guitar, Sting's
voice, Miguel Mateos' nocturnal machine-gun. Revelers all came after
school shindigs, the very shindigs where we could passionately kiss our
Santa Francisca Romana high school senior sweethearts for the first
time.
Since then the Rose Quarter has catered to a whole bunch of people:
there are underground bars where you're liable to be clobbered to death
if you dare play rock in Spanish.
"Serious" music is drummed up there, well?, the "dive joints" for
example, or how about some trans or rap?, and when things begin to
slowdown, how about some punk?.
But the City would be even more generous with youngsters during the
eighties. Many more in many other parts of the City jammed the Ovejo
(Lamb) and Metro, Pipeline and Salome, F.M., Rock-ola (Jukebox) and
Peperina.
The Old La Candelaria Quarter began its rebirth thanks to support from
the Banco Central Hipotecario financial institution. No longer was it
just merely a few sad and beautiful streets under yellow lights and
roamed by tipsters. In comparison with the rest of the City, which could
not resist the brick war, delivering its homes of yore to the clutches
of thousands of buildings, La Candelaria stood fast. Part of that
resistance (that shell's dignity) was thanks to the proverbial
stubbornness shown by Santiago Garcia and his La Candelaria theater
group and to the Teatro Libre (Open Theater) group. And somewhat to the
Col6n Theaters inertial aura. And in no little measure to architects
Sim6n Velez and "Chino" Erazo who years before started the quarters
reinvention chore. One thing is certain, when Carlos Vives began to play
his music of yesterday, so full of power, at the La Estación (The
Station) on I Oth Street between Third and Fourth Camera, the
neighborhood already had an after-hours side, gathering folks from the
many cities making up today's City: folks from Kennedy with folks from
Los Rosales.
The eighties were fascinating years and frightening years, the best and
the worst of times.
After all, it was the decade teaching us survival's basic rules, which
perhaps have not been entirely forgotten: strong within the inner self
to cope with violence and terrorism.
It was the decade which opened with a strengthened M- 19 guerrilla
movement, whose members took the justice Palace with bullets and closed
with the same M-19 group peacefully laying down their weapons, joining
society enjoying clearly one third of the Constituent National Assembly
members selected to rewrite the Constitution in 1991. It was the decade
which started with Klim's Brother Gulito, followed by President
Betancours "It can be done" motto and President Barco's "Strong pulse
and outstretched hand", winding up with President Gaviria's "Welcome to
the future".
It was the decade of the car-bombs, airliners blowing-up in mid-air and
the apocalyptic voices of the lords of evil forewarning of cataclysms.
The decade in which society -at least part of it- understood that narco
trafficking was our very own problem and that their assassins could take
the best away from us. But it was also the period we showed that we
could defeat them.
At the end of the day it was another Amparo Grisales vamp-like decade, a
wilder decade, if one may say so, a decade when young folk of 1968
reached adulthood, with adolescent daughters and a second generation of
wives, also adolescents. It was a time we saw Hisnardo Ardila and his
district band fade away and Andres Pastrana, barely a kid, was Bogota's
first popularly elected major. It was a period when the City faced its
adult life crisis, which it is still experiencing, and anything may go,
the devil always attacks at noon.
It was the decade we were all delighted to see Gabo (Nobel Literature
Prize Winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez) all spiffy in white traditional
garb soaking-in the world's appreciation, and to speak to the world
about our society. And it was also the decade that smog befell upon us,
not letting us see well and making us look like that famous Wisconsin
mythical bird, quoted by Borge, the Goofus Bird building his nest the
other way around and flying backwards because he doesn't care where he's
going to but where he came from.
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