La Quinta de Don Torcuato: from Carlos Menem’s VIP prison to the car depot and abandonment

“On June 7, 2001, I heard helicopters and I sensed that something was going to happen. I turned on the television and saw this Carlos menem I was coming here. He started a whole year of ordeal because the next day a caravan of mobile homes of sympathizers was installed to make him endure. There was no chemical toilet, it was a pigsty and they threatened us, ”he recalls. Second Santillán, who lives in front of the famous Armando Gostanián’s farm where the former president Carlos Saúl Menem He spent 167 days in preventive detention.

For more than five months, Menem was under house arrest for illegal arms sales to Ecuador and Croatia in Don Torcuato’s house that Gostanián, his businessman friend and former president of Casa de la Moneda, gave him. He benefited from it because he was already 70 years old.

Little of this splendor was left: almost the entire building was demolished, and a dealership in the area is using the 6,000 square meter property as a car depot.

In Rafael Obligado 1450, a few steps from Provincial Road 202, the bell rings, but no one answers. The grass on the even side of the sidewalk has not been cut for a long time, at the odd address it is freshly cut. The neighborhood has no movement. Neighbors say they often see a homeowner sweeping the door and he lives in the only part of the house that has not yet been demolished, less than 100 meters from the front door. The demolition work was recorded, according to the poster of the municipality of Tigre hung at the entrance, January 3, 2019.

Plants climb the perimeter of the trellis and multiply inside without a pattern. The rusty gate is covered with a frayed green tarp. If the objective is not to see the land which occupies more than half a block, it is not achieved. Through the peeling bars they see dozens of Fiat cars from the Venezia dealership, located one block away. Local vendors explained to THE NATION that a little over six months ago, they used this land as a warehouse for new and used cars, because there is no more room in the company.

The vehicles seem to have taken the fifth as vegetation. You see half a hundred cars, trucks and utility vehicles. Among them is debris from demolition work and the wheels are covered with overgrown weeds.

“How long has it been?” Teresita, who knew she was a neighbor of Menem and saw up close those who entered Gostanián’s farm to visit. He opens the door to his house which borders the property, as he remembers: “It was very big and old, it looked like a castle. There was a pool and a barbecue area. He took tea in the garden facing mine. My kids were spying, but I didn’t look much because I wasn’t interested. “Her daughter CeciliaInstead, he claims to have seen him “sitting at the table outside one morning.”

It was difficult to find him outside the house as he was hiding from the press. Residents comment that from the heights of the fifth tower there were more possibilities. “When you passed the 202, you saw it, sometimes it was on the balcony of the building that looked like a castle,” he said. Elio Fiore, who has lived in Don Torcuato for 50 years.

Next to Fiore’s fate is that of Santillán, who predicts that he has no appreciation for the former president. “I remember that at the children’s party they set up a caravan and a stage with a show. They handed out toys: Peronism in its maximum presence. We went there to see what was going on. We had access to the stage because the street was cut off from the side of the road. A friend walked in the back when Cecilia Bolocco came out and greeted her “, remember.

However, step of Menem left a lot of discomfort. “The group of activists“ el aguante ”revolutionized the neighborhood. You were afraid to go through there because they had taken the street. My wife lived next door and my spare tire was stolen once. They looked at the neighbors defiantly. I never voted for him and here he is not liked either, ”he says. José María Astarloa, Cecilia’s husband.

“Was difficult, a real torture for the people who came. Those who were camping threatened us. They resented the neighbors. There were also people who sold choripanes. The entire block was filled, day and night, with these people who camped out and intimidated us. Sometimes you couldn’t leave the house. They didn’t let my husband pass with the truck, ”she said. Teresita.

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