Know the stations

Line: Deodoro e Santa Cruz

Local Attractions: “Batata de Marechal” (‘informal’ street traders on the station’s sidewalk)

Considered one of the most beautiful in the network, the station’s architecture was inspired by European rural stations and still preserves its origin.

Its bricks were brought directly from England by merchant ships. The structure is particularly noticeable due to the presence of French tiles, four facades, wide roofs and details in tiles of German and Belgian origin not to mention French iron arches.

The station was named in honor of one of the presidents of Brazil: Marshal Hermes da Fonseca. He was present at the opening of the neighborhood (Vila Proletária de Marechal Hermes) and the station.

The history of the neighborhood is curious. The place was specially designed to be the home of workers (and their families). According to the author and journalist, André Luis Mansur Baptista, in the work Marechal Hermes - the History of a Neighborhood “from the train line a square would be built, with a wide main avenue cut by some cross streets, a design that remains till today. 738 houses both single and double storey houses would be built to house 1350 families as well as single men. The project provided for the construction of schools, post offices and telegraphs, a police headquarters, a market, an emergency clinic, a maternity hospital, a market, a gym and a theater, as well as a fire department unit and a water reservoir. The streets would be 18 meters wide and would be lined with trees. The rents would be deducted from the payroll, with the owners of the factories being responsible for the payment. In order to live in the new neighborhood, however, some conditions applied, among them the proletariat certificate, indicating that the resident was "a good householder", " conduct himself well" and, mainly, had no connection with anarchism , the political movement brought to Brazil by European immigrants and which strongly pervaded the factories".