(BR) - Residencial Elza Soares

The Residencial Elza Soares is the new name given to the occupied former The Lord Palace in São Paulo, Brazil. The Lord Palace Hotel was built in the 1950s and operated as a luxury hotel for many years. Until 2004, a restaurant operated on the ground floor. The building remained abandoned for eight years until it was occupied in 2012 by the Associação Amigos do Jardim Ipanema, an affiliate of the Frente de Luta por Moradia (FLM). The struggle was fundamental to gaining access to the right to live and occupy the city. It is this same struggle that the condominium's name aims to convey. Renamed Residencial Elza Soares , in honor of the singer, a Black woman who suffered racism at the same hotel in 1964, its (re)existence celebrates the presence of Black and poor people in a space that was previously denied to them.