Rua Simpatia, 103 in a photo taken on 2nd October 2023. The 2-story house on the left is where we lived from December 1960 through to June 1969; The house still stands. The house on the right used to belong to Adácio, Augustinha & Zé with their parents Dona Maria & Seu ...
Rua Simpatia in Vila Madalena lies a few blocks from Cemitério São Paulo, which is officially considered part of Pinheiros. My family moved to Rua Simpatia, 42 on 16 December 1960, a Friday. A few years later São Paulo's Municipal Council re-arranged the street's numbering and it changed from 42 to 103... Rua Simpatia, 103. The small 'sobrado' (3 story-house) we lived (on top) wasn't moved from one side of the road to the opposite, but they decided we lived on the odd-number side of the street instead. Well, never mind.
Rua Simpatia was a bit of a schizophrenic aera for it didn't belong here or there. We went to Calvary Church (Igreja do Calvário) to attend Sunday masses every week. Calvário belonged to Pinheiros but not quite...being closer to Cerqueira Cesar actually.
From our front balcony on Rua Simpatia we could see two church steeples. On the left we gazed at the twin towers of Our Lady of Fatima (Nossa Senhora de Fátima) which lies on Avenida Dr. Arnaldo, 1831 and we knew it as being located at Sumaré, but if you look up on Google the church considers itself as serving the Perdizes region.
I don't know why we chose to attend Calvary Church instead of Our Lady of Fatima when we first arrived in December 1960, for they were situated more-or-less at the same distance from home. We probably must have asked the neighbours or saw some of the neighbours heading towards Calvary on Sunday mornings and imitated them.
Calvary Church was more 'natural' maybe because one only had to get to rua Luiz Murat which ran behing Cemitério São Paulo, turn left and go all the way to rua Henrique Schaumann and then turn right whereas to go to Our Lady of Fatima one had to go through inhabited areas until one reached rua Heitor de Andrade which was an avenue with a lot of traffic.
Old Calvary Chapel on the right adjoining Passionist Convent in 1915, some 45 years before we started attending Calvary Church in 1960. The compound was built on top of a hill situated at Rua Cardeal Arcoverde, in front of a Park called Benedicto Calixto. Fifteen years later, in 1930, Calvary Church had already been built. The same church that is still extant in 2023. Calvary Church on 5 August 1923.
12 November 1967 - author Carlos Soulié do Amaral writes 'Morte na Rua Simpatia'.
