{"id":708,"date":"2009-04-01T19:30:20","date_gmt":"2009-04-01T22:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.recoletacemetery.com\/?p=708"},"modified":"2009-04-01T19:30:20","modified_gmt":"2009-04-01T22:30:20","slug":"324-death-of-a-president-day-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/?p=708","title":{"rendered":"324. death of a president, day 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Velatorio<\/p>\n

From early morning, hundreds of people queued to pay their final respects to former President Ra\u00fal Alfons\u00edn<\/strong> who had passed away the night before<\/a>. His casket was brought to the National Congress at 10:00 & after a brief ceremony, the public began to pour in. Vice-President Julio Cobos<\/strong> was present during most of the morning:<\/p>\n

\"Velatorio<\/p>\n

\"Velatorio<\/p>\n

\"Velatorio<\/p>\n

The wake was open casket<\/strong>, & Alfons\u00edn had been decorated with two trademarks of the Presidency: a sash replicating the Argentine flag & a bast\u00f3n<\/em>. The public filed by at the foot of the casket, just out of reach. Special guests such as relatives, local & foreign politicians, or friends were able to access the body & express their condolences to\u00a0 family members present. All this time cameras rolled & the entire event broadcast live on Senado TV, Canal 7 & several of the news networks:<\/p>\n

\"Velatorio<\/p>\n

When crowds grew larger throughout the day, the decision was made to keep Congress open all night. An estimated 30,000+ people were able to express their gratitude one last time to Alfons\u00edn.<\/p>\n

—————————<\/p>\n

With the funeral scheduled for 12:00 the following day, Recoleta Cemetery was surprisingly calm. At the 1890 Revolution pantheon<\/strong> where Alfons\u00edn would be laid to rest, the only person to be seen was the caretaker. He descended a staircase to the entrance & came up a few moments later. When asked if everything was ready for tomorrow, he said: “Sure. It’s all taken care of.”<\/p>\n

\"Pante\u00f3n<\/p>\n

Looking inside, it didn’t seem as if anyone had been moved to accomodate Alfons\u00edn. Yrigoyen was still top center. Only a few flowers & a decorative ribbon with the UCR<\/strong> political party’s colors decorated the door:<\/p>\n

\"Pante\u00f3n<\/p>\n

Asking around, it turned out that the cemetery was to be closed to the public the following day. Scaffolding was going up immediately in front of the entrance gate<\/a> where several people had been invited to speak about Alfons\u00edn. The Policia Federal<\/strong> were getting a little antsy… they even told Flor she had to stop selling maps at 16:30 so they could get to work. Maybe there would be a way inside tomorrow…<\/p>\n

Photo credits: 1 – An\u00edbal Greco, La Naci\u00f3n \u2022 2 & 3 – Federico Guastavino, La Naci\u00f3n \u2022 4 – EFE \u2022 5 – Rafael Saralegui, Europa Press \u2022 6 & 7 – Robert Wright<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From early morning, hundreds of people queued to pay their final respects to former President Ra\u00fal Alfons\u00edn who had passed away the night before. His…<\/p>\n

Continue reading324. death of a president, day 2<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,15,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-politicians","category-presidents","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}