THE LUDIC DAILY LIFE OF THE SHOESHINE BOYS FROM SÃO PAULO

Abstract

Since the nineteenth century, shoeshine boys have occupied the streets of São Paulo for work and also for fun, playing gamesbetween one client and another or after the work was done. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the boys used public spaces in the city, such as Praça da Sé and Largo do Correio, dealing daily with the repression. Throughout the forties, the game of marbles lost space for another form of fun, music, transforming their own work instruments into musical instruments. Today, shoeshine boys still persist in the downtown area and in more distant neighborhoods, such as the Congonhas airport region, and continue to color the busy daily life with play and music. Based on research in periodicals, photographs and police documents, the article identifies and describes how it happened in the past and how the use of public spaces by the shoeshine boys in São Paulo still occurs today, as well as their amusements and strategies to survive in the context of the city.