Estação da Luz

Estação da Luz It could be a little London architectural theme park in the hisoric heart of São Paulo - the station is adorned with a clocktower copy of Big Ben and its project was inspired by one station in Melbourne, called Flinders Street Station. Built by the british-owned São Paulo Railway, the station opened in 1901, and for many years it was São Paulo`s first stop for the wealthy, the civil servants and the foreigners arriving from the port city of Santos. The money to build it came from the coffee industry, and its heyday lasted until World War II: in 1946, a fire burned down most of the structure. As part of the state`s more recent attention to its faded icons, the old structure was rebuilt and painted in the 90`s.