The upper facade of Estación Central´s railway station. Photo courtesy of Lugar_Citadino (flickr).
Estación Central is the name of a municipality, a neighborhood, a market, a metro station and also Chile´s main railway terminal. Designed by Gustave Eiffel —yes, the same person as Paris´ Eiffel Tower— the station was declared a national monument in 1983, and for many years, was our capital´s main entryway.
While the Estación Central municipality is quite broad, its most central and busiest part is right where the train station, the market and the metro converge, with a fair amount of commerce of all kinds, famous for being very cheap.
This point of the city is quite emblematic, as it´s located almost midway between the periphery and Plaza Italia. It´s the entrance to Santiago´s "suburban" world, farther from downtown and the concentration of restaurants and bars, closer to the inhabitants, the residential neighborhoods.
A characteristic of this place is just how "unglamorous" it is, being much closer to a lower middle class Chile —I know that Santiago isn´t Chile, but I also know what the regions are like, and for this, I dare to generalize— a truer Chile, that of the majority; because, they understand that Bellas Artes and Providencia are just a small part of Santiago.
It´s always crowded with shoppers, buying things, walking from one place to another, taking the metro-train, or simple passing through, because close by are movie theaters, the planetarium, USACH (Universidad de Santiago de Chile) and places such as Matucana, or the very traditional "Hoyo."
An interesting part of the city, this place undoubtedly shows another side of the city, a facet as authentic as others, but much closer to a national reality.
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