Peace returns to Buenos Aires neighborhood after 30-year building occupation ends

After more than three decades, a long-standing occupation of an unfinished building in Buenos Aires's Núñez neighborhood has ended. The structure at Manuela Pedraza 1875, originally planned as an imposing twin-tower residential complex, had stood as a deteriorating concrete shell for years. It became a magnet for successive waves of occupants, with estimates suggesting over 100 people lived there at various times. Neighbors described the occupants as mostly immigrants who worked and maintained a non-confrontational relationship with the surrounding community. Recent occupants included groups from Paraguay, Peru, and Bolivia, with the Paraguayan era recalled as a more "orderly" period. The building, which lacked gas and recently lost electricity, showed visible signs of its prolonged habitation, including lingering furniture, clothes on balconies, and makeshift repairs, even as authorities recently ordered its complete evacuation and boarded up access points.