Saturday 25 April 2009

Street names

There aren't many streets in Faja Grande and, until recently, only one of them, the main street, Rua do Senador Andre de Freitas, had its name up. (Incidentally, the main street in Santa Cruz, the main town on the island, is called the same suggesting Andre de Freitas must have been quite a big cheese around here but I don't know who he was - I must find out and I'll let you know.)

Anyway, this has been remedied and street names have now gone up all round the village. It has had some curious results, though, with some streets now having two names:-

and some streets having the same name twice:-

The lady who owns the house the above street name is affixed to refused (quite correctly in my view) to allow them to take the old sign down as it referred to the date 1920 - although she didn't know the significance of that year.

Next time, I'm going to tell you about the house numbers that have been going up.

1 comment:

Katharine Baker said...

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jo%C3%A3o_Joaquim_Andr%C3%A9_de_Freitas

It would take quite a while to translate the entire entry into English, but briefly:

João Joaquim André de Freitas
Born Fajã Grande, 1860
Died Lisbon, June 22, 1929
Parents: Manuel Joaquim André de Freitas & Maria de Jesus de Freitas

He became a politician (hence "Senador") and a commissioner of Public Works -- the latter of which could explain the predilection for naming Flores streets after him :-) He also led construction of the (now-former) Hospital Walter Bensaúde in Horta, Faial.