The general idea is that the long neglected and now nearly derelict part of the port would be turned into an exciting area with shops, condos and office space. Cruise ships and pleasure boats would dock at a Y shaped pier that will go out from where you see the first row of cranes in the picture above. I nice dream.
Rio’s port experienced the same changes that affected ports all over the world. Containerized cargo rendered most of the existing warehouses unnecessary (containerized cargo is just stacked up) while the larger size of the ships & the big equipment needed to load and unload them made it necessary to have more open space, both on the land and in the water. Inland, wider roads are needed. The old infrastructure is no longer appropriate. Finally, the once busy docks are now largely abandoned; a machine run by one operator does the work of hundreds of longshoremen, so all the houses and apartments once occupied by dock workers, their families and associated workers are now empty. Put in a more positive light, there are lots of opportunities for redevelopment.
Someday, if things are done right, this area will be high end real estate, as we have now in Baltimore, Boston or Charleston. It is an aspiration that makes sense, but it takes a imagination to picture it now. Below is a kid sliding down a rock that obviously many kids have used before. But the rock has a darker history. It was the place where slaves were unloaded and sold in Rio’s first days as a Portuguese colony.
