FireatFaveladaPraiadoPinto

Image description: This is a black-and-white photograph of a favela. On the left side, we see several small wooden houses with sloped roofs, some with balconies. Moving toward the right, we notice more similar structures, but with variations in layout and size. In the center, there is a small plot of land with vegetation. On the right, we find a larger building with an open entrance. In the background, we see a line of trees and, beyond them, a structure that appears to be a public building. In the upper part of the image, there is an area with more buildings and a mountain in the background.

In the past, there was a group of favelas on the shores of the Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon. The largest of them was the so-called Praia do Pinto, in Leblon, a horizontal favela whose origins probably date back to the 1930s, with the start of construction on the Jardim de Alá canal and the rising property values in the region, which increased the supply of jobs in construction and in the service sector. Its first residents were mainly migrants from the Northeast who were looking for work or were already employed in the nearby neighborhoods.

But it was real estate appreciation itself, turned into speculation, that became one of the decisive factors behind the enormous pressure that culminated in the radical favela removal policy carried out during the administrations of Carlos Lacerda and Negrão de Lima in the 1960s. Through an operation as gigantic as it was brutal, the public authorities tried to remove as many favelas as possible from the South Zone and the central region, transferring their residents to distant housing complexes with precarious infrastructure.

Image description: This is a black and white photograph of a favela. The image shows a narrow street with simple wooden houses surrounded by bamboo fences. On the left, children are walking along the street, while on the right, two children are standing near a bamboo wall. In the background, there is a hill covered with dense vegetation. At the top of the image, power lines are visible, and broad-leaved trees line the right side.

The removal of the Praia do Pinto favela was part of this movement and illustrates very well the authoritarianism and drive toward segregation within it. As it happens, the decisive episode in the removal process was a fire, never explained. In the early hours of one morning in May 1969, around a thousand shacks were destroyed by the flames, leaving 9,000 people homeless. The tragedy occurred during a period of particular tension, with community leaders putting up resistance to threats of transfer to other neighborhoods. The fire ended up serving as a pretext for removing the residents, who were taken to distant housing complexes such as Cidade Alta and Cidade de Deus, and some later became part of the Cruzada São Sebastião, neighboring the favela.

In the area of the former Praia do Pinto, a condominium known as Selva de Pedra was built, and, more recently, the Shopping Leblon.