It wasn’t just me, and certainly whoever is from the capital of Rio de Janeiro and decided to click on this text or went there, or knows someone who went up the BR-040 to go buy clothes on the very traditional Rua Teresa, in Petrópolis, in what is considered the main hub of clothing from the Serrana Region.
The confusion of stores and bags of those who go shopping to resell in Rio de Janeiro gave way, this Wednesday morning (16), to the remains of cars, twisted railings and a gigantic amount of mud. There and in other parts of the city, until 9 pm on Wednesday, 94 people were found dead.
The first to walk on the old street were, literally, all those who wanted to reach the city founded by D. Pedro II, in the 19th century: until the creation of the Washington Luís Highway, in the late 1920s, anyone leaving Rio de Janeiro and wanted to go to Petrópolis, he had to go there. The name of the street is not for nothing: a tribute to the wife of Dom Pedro II, Teresa Cristina.
Historian Joaquim Eloy explains that the houses on Rua Teresa, either out of necessity or because of the opportunity to be the only way, shared residence and commerce in the 19th century. the advance of production on an industrial scale, small and medium producers gained strength and, from the factories, workers went to set up their shops on the most famous street in the city.
At its peak, local data indicate that 25% of the city’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) came from there, with at least 40,000 people employed in at least 1,200 establishments. THE CNNentrepreneurs and members of the Federation of Industries of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Firjan) calculate that the crisis that has plagued Rio since 2015 has contributed to reducing the economic potential of the road.
Before the mud reached three meters in height at the site, as reported by the CNN Pedro Duran, the old Rua Teresa employed between 18 and 20 thousand people in around 600 stores.
In the future, nobody knows. This Thursday (17), Rua Teresa will certainly be less noisy than when it became a textile hub. Instead of the whispers of bargains and cardboard machines, the machines that will try to recover the old imperial path and, probably, the cry of those who count losses will be heard.
the reporter from CNN Cleber Rodrigues picked up some stories from merchants such as Raimundo Martins, who, after 40 years of working on Rua Teresa, was not even able to enter his store to account for losses. “Raimundo told me that every time it rains in Petrópolis they are afraid, they pray, and life goes on,” said Cleber.
Nineteenth-century Brazil necessarily passes through Petrópolis since the arrival of the Royal Family in 1808, its palaces, symbols and imperial reminiscences. In the Republic, all presidents until the mid-1960s, and later Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva: all spent a few days at Palácio Rio Negro, a summer residence.
And in the 21st century, the city of D. Pedro II summarizes and deepens the tragedy of a country that in 2022 will be submerged, with at least 160 dead in four states devastated by the rains. Friend of time, country scenery, dreams passed through Teresa Street that, once again, will need to reinvent itself.
Source: CNN Brasil
