Eyes On Recife

May 22, 2013 · 7:33 am

Recife has the 2nd best airfare in the Northeast (2010 study)

Recife has the second best average cost in the Northeast for those who travel by air within the country. According to the Ligações Aéreas 2010 report, published yesterday by IBGE, flying out of the Pernambucan capital three years ago would cost, on average, R$268. Salvador led the ranking in the region, with R$210 one-way flights. At the same time, João Pessoa, capital of Paraíba, showed the most costly average prices, at R$412.

The IBGE study looked at airfare costs, but also the most likely passenger-related problems. It mapped the highest-frequency routes in the country, where the majority of flights are concentrated. At Recife’s International Airport, the average, annual flow is 4,792 passengers, among arrivals and departures. On a national ranking, the Pernambucan airport is in 7th place — behind São Paulo, Rio, Brasília, Salvador, Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre.

Of the 877 registered flights in the country in 2010, practically 50% of the passenger air traffic concentrated itself in 24 pairs of cities. The stretches that connect São Paulo with the six principal metropolises (Rio, Brasília, Porto Alegre, Salvador, Belo Horizonte and Curitiba) was responsible for 25% of the total passengers transported — 71,750,986 people in 2010. Recife, on the other hand, shows up on three of the 24 highest frequency flights, with connections to São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Salvador.

For the coordinator of the study, Marcelo Paiva Motta, the concentration of connections represents disadvantages for the passengers from some Brazilian regions. “The concentration may cut travel costs, but it depends on what smaller cities have a higher number of connections, a measure that lessens the passengers’ access, because travel time becomes longer,” he explained.

In 2010, 135 of 5,565 Brazilian counties had airports. The demographic and economic importance make São Paulo the main concentrator of passenger flow in the country, followed by Rio de Janeiro and Brasília. Despite the concentration, in spacial terms, the country is well-covered, according to Mota.

The study also shows that air cargo transport is even more concentrated, due to elevated costs. More than half the traffic occurs in 10 pairs of connections. São Paulo-Manaus led the air cargo movement, with a total volume of 99,344 thousand kg. The São Paulo-Recife connection comes in 4th place, with 17,085 thousand kg. In the top 10 is Recife-Fortaleza (9th place) at 7,557 thousand kg.

In Marcelo Paiva Motta’s opinion, the data may help in the creation of public policies to improve the accessibility of cities that are less favored in terms of aerial connections and solve the problem of places where the distance of the airports is far or hard to access. – Source (PT)

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Tagged as airfare, Brazilian aviation study, flight costs, IBGE, Recife blog, research

May 21, 2013 · 2:56 pm

The start of Casas Pernambucanas

Casas Pernambucanas, a 105-year old chain of departments stores, is one of the biggest and most traditional retail businesses in Brazil. It’s the 13th largest retail chain in Brazil today, though at its peak in the 1970s it consisted of 800 stores. Today, however, there’s less than 300.

Brief History

Like various other big Brazilian retail stores — Casas Bahia and Lojas Americanas being the best examples — the Casas Pernambucanas were founded by an immigrant. Herman Theodor Lundgren came from Sweden and landed in Rio de Janeiro in 1855, but settled in Recife (because he thought he’d have less business competition there). Being a polyglot, he began working as a foreign interpreter at the port but ended up as an importer and, after seeing the high prices of imported powder, created the Pernambuco Powder Factory. His new business made him a rich man.

In 1904, with his new riches, Herman bought a cloth factory but he died three years later. In 1908, his family turned the factory into Lojas Paulista (the precursor to Casas Pernambucanas), located in a district of Olinda called Paulista. Years later, with the defeat of São Paulo in the Constitutional Revolution of 1932, Herman’s family decided to change the name to Casas Pernambucanas.

Around the 1920s, the stores created an innovative marketing stretegy, in a time when the concept (of marketing) wasn’t even fully formed. The strategy consisted of sending its employees out to write ads on stones, sheds, gates, trees and anywhere else they could do it. Phrases like “Tecidos / Casas Pernambucanas / Onde todos compram” (Cloths / Casas Pernambucanas / Where everyone goes to buy) and “Tecidos bons e baratos, Casas Pernambucanas” (Good and cheap cloths, Casas Pernambucanas) were used in the ad campaign. A few years prior to 1920, a Bahian businessman in charge of a few stores decided to ride a donkey through town with a sign saying “I’m the only one who doesn’t make purchases at the Casas Pernambucanas”. His strategy was a hit as it made everyone curious about the store.

Interesting Fact

Casas Pernambucanas has 295 stores in seven Brazilian states: Goiás, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Paraná, Santa Catarina and São Paulo. Curiously, the state of Pernambuco, birthplace of the chain and the origin of the name, doesn’t have a store due to a dispute among the heirs.

(sources: brunotorres.net, Wikipedia, and iBahia)

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· 8:33 am

May 2013 Events

I’m quite late on my May Events post, but I wanted to include the following…

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The 2nd Edition of Contemporary Portuguese Cinema starts this Tuesday (21st) and goes until Sunday (26th), in downtown Recife, bringing 12 full-length films and 7 short films to the Caixa Cultural movie theater. The festival’s objective is to present recent cinemagraphic productions from Portugal to the Brazilian public.

One of the organizers, Carolina Dias, explains that the films made in Portugal rely on public funding, which facilitates the filmmakers’ endeavors. “By not having these more commercial concerns, so to speak, Portuguese cinema is allowed to be more free, open and authorial, and more innovative in terms of form, aesthetics and theme”, she said.

The curator stated that the films shown during the festival — productions from 2000 to 2012 — are examples of the principle characteristics of recent Portuguese cinema. “They’re very unencombered, we won’t present many very well-known directors. With the film selections, we wanted to show precisely the opposite of this, like with the film “Branca de Neve”, by João César Monteiro, who died in 2003, which is a film with a black screen almost the entire time”, she said.

The festival will give critics and directors the opportunity to present the films shown during the event, like the critic Luiz Soares Júnior, who will present “Branca de Neve”, and the Cineclub Dissenso, who will show “É na Terra não é na Lua”, by Gonçalo Tocha.

Honored during this edition will be the Portuguese director Fernando Lopes, who died in 2012. “He died when we were creating the project last year and we thought it important to honor him because he was one of the precursors of the Portuguese Cinema Novo. Here in Brazil he’s not well-known”, says Carolina. Two of his films are part of the event: “Belarmino” (1964) and “Uma abelha na chuva” (1972). – Source (PT, click the link for the schedule)

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The 2nd Edition of Contemporary Portuguese Cinema
Caixa Cultural Recife: 505, Alfredo Lisboa Avenue – Recife neighborhood
Tickets: R$ 2 (regular) and R$ 1 (discounted), on sale at the Caixa Cultural ticket counter.
Info: (81) 3425-1900

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May 15, 2013 · 7:12 am

Boa Viagem – Neighborhoods

Boa Viagem is a neighborhood in the privileged southern zone of Recife. It has one of the most visited beaches in Northeastern Brazil, Boa Viagem beach. Thousands regularly gather on its wide sandy beaches that stretch for 5 miles. This is one of the longest stretches of urbanized seafront in Brazil; its coastal reef calms the waves and helps keep the water at 77ºF.

This upper-middle class district acts as the center of the city’s social life. It hosts the 6th biggest shopping center in Brazil — Shopping Recife, with 473 stores. Most of Recife’s best hotels are in Boa Viagem, as well as many outdoor cafes, restaurants, and a lively nightclub scene. Every night, Boa Viagem beach is lit up, allowing bathers to swim at night and attracting many young people. [01]

While it’s one of the city’s richest neighborhoods, it isn’t the most developed (despite the picture above), mainly due to its favelas such as Entra-a-Pulso, Tancredo Neves and Bruno Veloso. Even so, the real estate market in the neighborhood is booming (it has been for a long time) and therefore draws comparisons with Barra da Tijuca in Rio.

Different from Rio, Recife is known for shark attacks, with 57 occurring since 1992, of which 22 were fatal. About 60% of them happened when the tide has come in, on nights with a full or new moon. Danger signs are posted all along the coast in case this particular fact goes unperceived.

History

The name of the neighborhood Boa Viagem comes from the oceanside church, the Nossa Senhora da Boa Viagem, built around 1743, which also carries the name of the patron saint of sailors and navegators.

The village of Boa Viagem, starting out as a quiet locale for fishermen to work and live, began to gain new momentum in 1858, when the first stretch of the Recife – São Francisco railroad (the second railroad built in Brazil) was opened. The first stretch started in the famous São José neighborhood downtown and was destined for the city of Cabo de Santo Agostinho, just south of Recife. The train made a stop at a station, located in Boa Viagem at the end of the a street named Rua Barão de Souza Leão (see below). Initially, a handcar and then a donkey-driven trolley car took people straight down the street from the railway station to the church plaza (Praça Boa Viagem), a stone’s throw from the beach, motivating many families to spend their summer as well as Christmas. This was the start of the influx of wealthy residents into the neighborhood who began to buy property upon which they built their summer houses.

(R. Barão de Souza Leão, between the plaza and the station)

The construction of the Avenida Boa Viagem, in 1924, and its proximity to the Guararapes airport (opened in 1958), contributed greatly to the development of the neighborhood. In 1954, Boa Viagem’s first international class hotel, Hotel Boa Viagem (advertised as having “100 apartments facing the sea”) was opened. [02]

The district’s first sky-scrapers, buildings with the names of the Holiday (1957), the Acaiaca (1958) and the California (1960) were built as summer housing. The residential boom was also helped along by the construction of the previously-mentioned Shopping Recife, in 1980.

The Human Development Index for Boa Viagem is the highest in the city, and is constrasted by the lowest in the entire state, the nearby Joana Bezerra Island, which houses the Coque favela. The difference between the two is the same as the difference in HDI between Norway and Gabon, in sub-saharan Africa, yet they exist virtually side-by-side.

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May 13, 2013 · 1:34 pm

Academia da Berlinda – Fui Humilhado

Academia da Berlinda is a band from Olinda that creates cumbias, guarachas, afrobeats and traditional Pernambucan rythyms like ciranda and coco.

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· 8:56 am

Frevo Law, one month later

One month ago on April 11th, the mayor of Recife instated the frevo law, aka “Momento do Frevo” for which all radio stations in Recife should play at least two frevo songs per day. Though the songs should be played twice a day (between 8am-12pm and 2pm-6pm), the problem is there’s no punishment for stations that choose to ignore the law.

“It may seem little, but it’s not. We want to provoke a debate, to rescue the culture and stimulate the composition of new frevos. I’m certain that all radio stations will adhere (to the law) when they understand our intention better, even if they only play one frevo per day,” explained city counsilor Marco Aurélio Medeiros, the author of the bill.

Most people in the radio industry in Recife are against it, though understand the law’s good intention. The artistic director of the Transamérica radio station is one of the people against the “Momento do Frevo”. He says, “It’s not important that frevo is played, but rather that frevo is liked by the people in their day-to-day.” Nonetheless, the only radio station til now that’s followed the law is that of Folha de Pernambuco, which already included frevo in their programming.

The problem with the population’s connection to frevo music is they associate it with Carnival time and rarely experience it during other months. Also, people tend to think of it as visual and musical, but not merely musical. The important thing is that the law got people talking about the subject and, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say the mayor intentionally left out punishment for not following the law so that the subject would become a discussion point. – Source (PT)