Bazar do Saara

This guide to Bazar do Saara in downtown Rio starts at the water's edge that used to be here, before a 1716 customs house gave Rua da Alfandega its name and the city filled the shoreline in with landfill. It follows the waves of merchants who settled the reclaimed ground afterward: Portuguese traders first, then Syrian and Lebanese arrivals from the 1800s, then Jewish families from Eastern Europe. Listen for how each community's arrival is tied to a different corner of these eleven pedestrian streets.