Parque Minhocão

Inaugurated on São Paulo’s birthday in 1971, the Minhocão was the largest infrastructure project of its time in Latin America- a 3.5-kilometer elevated expressway slicing through the dense city center. The highway is named after the minhocão, a quasi-fictitious earthworm-like creature. In many places the roadbed passes within 5 meters of apartment windows, distributing exhaust fumes directly into living rooms. It was controversial from the start, and widely held responsible for the decline of the city’s historic centre. But Paulistanos reclaimed it: first closed to traffic at night, and then at weekends and on holidays, becoming an impromptu park. Now more than 70,000 cars rumble across it on weekdays, while on weekends it transforms into an open-air gallery- skateboarders weave between massive murals, joggers pound concrete, and families picnic atop what was once the city’s greatest infrastructural regret.