Welcoming nook, the squares send our memories to childhood when we gazed to toys but also are areas of leisure and adult social interaction, scenario to gather friends of all ages and stage of cultural manifestations, They are all of it and can also serve of start point to know a city.

   Porto Alegre has 625 urban squares, occupying a total area superior of four million square meters. What about visiting one of them? We have selected five different regions, but you can put other ones in this script. You will never run out of options.

  Júlio Mesquita Square is in front of Usina do Gasômetro. Besides having a big wood deck, fenced soccer court and gymnastics equipment, the playground between Presidente João Goulart Avenue General Salustiano Street received toys and new lights which will guarantee public patrimony preservation and its visitor’s safety at night. The deck installation preserved around 20 trees. The benches form some kind of belt that protects logs and roots of various species. Not everyone knows it, but the square and the shore of Gasômetro are part of Sítio Arqueológico da Ponta da Cadeia.

  Before initiating its construction, an archeology team elaborated a report to Instituto do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico Nacional (Iphan). During the excavations, the archaeologists found the basis of the entrance gate to the jail that sheltered over one thousand prisoners and was demolished on the 60’.

  The rocks would have been settled by slaves on the Empire period between 1822 and 1889. With the jail removal, the foundation went frightened and hid. But there remain the concrete made signs, revested in ceramics, from the old entrance and, to many, unknown jail.

Photos: Daniele Farias