The standard picture-postcard image of São Paulo used to be the soaring Banespa tower, an Empire State look-alike that rises proudly above the now ageing city centre. But Banespa, the former São Paulo state bank, has been sold to Santander of Spain. Once a powerful economic and social force and bastion of the trade union movement, it is now largely forgotten. The old centre, in spite of valiant attempts by private and public sectors to keep it alive as a business district, has all but faded into economic oblivion.
Now, anyone looking for an image of modern, thrusting – some would say brash – São Paulo is more likely to turn to the Ponte Estaiada, two curved roadways suspended by bright yellow steel cables from an elaborate concrete X-shaped structure rising above the Pinheiros “river” – one of two highly polluted waterways that used to enclose the city, beyond which it now spreads for miles in all directions.
