Within the framework of the implementation of the Lighting Master Plan, the Neighborhood Council 2 participated in the Open Model of a series of workshops organized by the Municipality of Montevideo to select, in a participatory manner, strategic and emblematic sites in the different neighborhoods and municipalities of Montevideo.
For Neighborhood Council 2, its vice president, José Abella, participated, along with councilor Chabela Ramírez. In this area, they proposed the light intervention on the facade of the former Cabildo prison building, which was declared a site of memory by the National Honorary Commission of Sites of Memory in 2019.
In said building, it is planned to open an access door to an area that will be managed by the Civil Association for the site of the Memory of the Former Cabildo Prison and that will allow citizens access to said area.
The former Cabildo prison is located in the block comprised of Cabildo, Nicaragua, Acevedo Díaz and Miguelete streets.
The proposal was accepted and on Tuesday, August 29, a test was carried out in which neighbors participated, members of the Memory Site Commission of the former Cabildo Prison, the vice president of Neighborhood Council 2 together with technical teams of the Intendancy and the Faculty of Architecture, Urbanism and Design (FADU).
The intervention plays symbolically with the meeting of the outside and the inside. This light intervention initiative is added to a broader project – the Lighting Master Plan – which seeks, through light, to prioritize places, heritage sites or represent historical milestones, promoting their contemplation and use.
memory enclave
The possibility for citizens to have access to the interior space of the building was opened last April, when the Civil Association for the Site of the Memory of the Former Cabildo Prison signed a loan agreement with the Congregation of the Good Shepherd, owner of the site of the memory site Ex Cárcel de Cabildo. Thanks to this loan, it will be possible to generate a space designed to publicize events from the recent past that concern women who were detained as political prisoners between the years 1968-1977.
The former Cabildo prison will be the only site of memory in Uruguay that will function as an open space for the recovery of memory on a private property.
The first women’s prison in Uruguay and the first prison for political prisoners were located there, and it was there that the inmates staged two historic escapes: Operation Paloma, carried out on March 8, 1970, which made it possible for 13 female prisoners to escape through the the Church that is located on the premises of the establishment and Operation Estrella that allowed the escape of 38 prisoners on July 30, 1971 through an underground tunnel.
Towards Heritage Day
In another order, the Site of Memory commission of the former Cabildo Prison continues to work intensely towards the 2022 Heritage Day, which will be held on Saturday, October 1 and Sunday, October 2, in tribute to China Zorrilla.
The event will feature the participation of various artists, with performances by the murga Metele, which are pastels, at 3:00 p.m., and Héctor Numa Moraes at 4:00 p.m., as well as the Panambí women’s choir for the Sunday 2.
Likewise, among other activities that will take place in the plaza located at Pasaje de la Vía and Acevedo Díaz, between Miguelete and Nicaragua and in front of the former prison, a group of former political prisoners will tell some stories about the adventures experienced in that place of imprisonment while there will be guided tours of the part of the prison compound that is preserved as a Site of Memory. A photographic exhibition of the time will also be exhibited and stickers (self-adhesive) alluding to the site will be distributed among visitors, which will also contain a QR code from the website of the former political prisoners of this prison located in the neighborhood of La Comercial -now Tres Cruces .
