Chacarita Cemetery

The gray granite gate of Chacarita Cemetery stands as a heavy, neoclassical screen between the city and the largest green space in Buenos Aires. It opened in eighteen seventy-one because the city’s other cemeteries could not hold the victims of a catastrophic yellow fever epidemic. In its first chaotic months, workers buried bodies in communal trenches at a terrifying rate. Today, the quiet rows of marble mausoleums and dark, subterranean vaults house the remains of legendary tango singer Carlos Gardel.