{"id":21778,"date":"2015-05-15T09:22:30","date_gmt":"2015-05-15T12:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=21778"},"modified":"2015-05-15T10:10:21","modified_gmt":"2015-05-15T13:10:21","slug":"in-tavares-bastos-world-famous-bar-the-maze-faces-demolition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=21778","title":{"rendered":"In Tavares Bastos, World-Famous Bar The MAZE Faces Demolition"},"content":{"rendered":"

The world-famous jazz bar<\/a>, The MAZE<\/a>, in the Tavares Bastos favela in Rio’s\u00a0South Zone<\/a>\u00a0neighborhood of Catete, has been marked for\u00a0demolition<\/a>\u00a0by the City of Rio.<\/p>\n

The MAZE, founded by BBC correspondent Bob Nadkarni in 1981, has plentiful\u00a0documentation disputing\u00a0allegations from the City, which\u00a0claims the\u00a0building is an unsafe structure. They\u00a0fear the impending demolition will be the first step in a targeted eviction of the entire community.<\/p>\n

The iconic bar, labeled among the\u00a0best jazz bars in the world and famous for hosting figures from Snoop Dogg to Thierry Henry, is a crucial presence within the small community.\u00a0Claudiana, a business owner in Tavares Bastos, told us, \u201cIt is perfect. It isn\u2019t a problem at all. Because it gives work to people\u2026 In my opinion, it should carry on like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The City intends to demolish The MAZE\u00a0due to safety concerns<\/a>; despite this, the Rio Tourism board is still advertising it<\/a> as a recommended accommodation to tourists.\u00a0The MAZE<\/span> Gallery hosts a collection of paintings created over 20 years, “So the MAZE<\/span> is recognized as a true cultural center, which is why we have so many writers, film directors, artists, photographers and artists staying here. It seems the City\u00a0cannot see the jewel it has right under its nose. They should be fighting to preserve….and even support it,” says Bob.<\/p>\n

Bob\u00a0alleges he has yet to see\u00a0proper justification or explanation for the proposed demolition of his home and livelihood. \u201cWhen we went to City Hall on August 12, they themselves, the department, said they had a legal obligation to give us a copy of the warrant within a maximum of 15 days. Until April\u00a0we still hadn\u2019t received anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

It would appear the City safety concerns stem from a\u00a02001 law which states that any favela building built after 2001 cannot be over two stories. However, The MAZE is over 30 years old and is a well-documented building in the national<\/a> media.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, per the City\u2019s instruction, an engineer, recommended by the City, came and evaluated the structure in December 2009. He concluded: \u201cAs for the building (The MAZE) at the moment, it presents no deformations…that cause instability or risk. Therefore at the moment it is a solid building and living space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Malu, born and raised in the community, is Bob\u2019s wife and\u00a0runs The MAZE with him. She alleges the recent proposal cannot be based on any further evidence<\/a> because: \u201cThe City didn\u2019t look at the foundations, they didn\u2019t look at the structure, they didn\u2019t come here to ask if we had any relevant documents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bob fears that were The MAZE to disappear, the community would face an intense campaign of evictions, with the ultimate goal to remove everyone. \u201cThe MAZE is just the opening gambit of the authorities to pick off the residents of Tavares Bastos one by one, thus opening the opportunity for real estate development.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
Events at the Maze – images from Facebook page<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Famously, Tavares Bastos was the set for \u2018Hulk 2\u2019, \u2018The Incredible Hulk\u2019 and a Snoop Dogg music video, bringing national<\/a> and international<\/a> media attention, as well as significant economic activity to the community. The result is that the bar directly employs 20 staff from Tavares Bastos, and provides a stream of customers for the vans, taxis and other businesses. Lucelita owns a bar and works with The MAZE: \u201cWhenever there is something on at The MAZE we supply them with pizzas and the like.\u201d She believes she also stands to lose if it were to disappear. Moreover, despite never having a violent history, the arrival of Bob and The MAZE played a role in establishing a BOPE headquarters in the community and since 2000 there has not been one murder.<\/p>\n

Even with\u00a0the list of guest stars, The MAZE continues to be engaged with community life in Tavares Bastos. Bob and Malu have hosted music and English teachers who worked in the community, the space hosts community events and fundraisers for a ballet school and a football school in the community. They have raised over R$200,000 for the Residents’ Association as well as building materials, and the film teams that have come through have led to a career in film for about a dozen residents.<\/p>\n

Bob explains: \u201cWe weren\u2019t looking out to help the ballet school, but you know, Giane was running a ballet school and they got so many kids into the Municipal Ballet School. They were really successful and then the mayor\u00a0took all the money away from them. He came in, said ‘its not my project,’ and took all the money from the football school (too). ‘It’s not my project, not my name,’ and took all the money away from them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The famous monthly jazz nights attracting visitors from around the city and the world are completely free to residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they destroy all of this, it will ruin my life\u2019s work and to be honest it will ruin the entire community,\u201d concludes Bob.<\/p>\n

Follow the story by following The MAZE<\/a> on Facebook.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world-famous jazz bar, The MAZE, in the Tavares Bastos favela in Rio’s\u00a0South Zone\u00a0neighborhood of Catete, has been marked for\u00a0demolition\u00a0by the City of Rio. The MAZE, founded by BBC correspondent Bob Nadkarni in 1981, has […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":21784,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1293,1267,1288,1329],"tags":[272,11,65,282,512,1370,10,270,156,1615],"writer":[1564],"translator":[],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-21778","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-evictionswatch","8":"category-gentrificationwatch","9":"category-highlight","10":"category-by-international-observers","11":"tag-mayor-eduardo-paes","12":"tag-forced-evictions","13":"tag-gentrification","14":"tag-housing","15":"tag-leisure","16":"tag-music","17":"tag-real-estate-speculation","18":"tag-resistance","19":"tag-south-zone","20":"tag-tavares-bastos","21":"writer-brooke-parkin"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21778"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=21778"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=21778"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=21778"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=21778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}