The Neighborhood Pet

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina—In Palermo Soho, one of Buenos Aires’ newer neighborhoods, the buildings aren’t renovated when they come of age. Instead they’re abandoned and left to simmer and crack under the weather and the small plants that grow on their faces.

Everywhere, walls are jutting out their limbs—metal pipes, nails, and wooden frames—almost as if in dialogue. Dust and rubble cover the surface of every cracked wall, and the buildings seemed to merge into one another as I passed them.

And then I realized that I had just walked past a giant moose. I looked to my right, and sure enough, there was a mural of an enormous blue moose with thick horns carrying a rider whose face was replaced with an open palm.

Jaz, the artist who painted it, wanted to give his neighbors something more beautiful to look at than the side of a fallen building. So one day about a year ago, he called up a friend, and the two put up ladders and spent a day constructing their moose for the people.

Since then, it has spent its days feeding off the young plants that have sprouted on top of the abandoned apartment below. Because of the way it was painted—with faded colors and a style almost as loose as the buildings themselves—I had almost missed it completely.

My Ngoc To ’14 is an editorial writer in Pforzheimer House.