The Fight Over São Paulo’s “Times Square” Has Just Begun

The Intersection That Wrote a Song

Every Brazilian knows the crossing. The intersection of Avenidas São João and Ipiranga, in downtown São Paulo, was immortalized by Caetano Veloso in “Sampa” — a love song to a city that never stops reinventing itself. For decades the corner has been the symbolic heart of paulistano identity: chaotic, cinematic, and defiantly analog in a digital age. Now the city government wants to reinvent it, this time with LED screens up to 1,000 square meters that would transform the intersection into what officials informally call the “Times Square paulistana.”

The project, formally named Boulevard São João, entered public consultation on Tuesday and will accept submissions until March 24. It envisions LED panels mounted on four buildings — Cine Paris República, Edifício Herculano de Almeida, Galeria Sampa, and Edifício New York — plus light projections on the façade of the Edifício Independência II, home to the legendary Bar Brahma. The private partner behind the plan is Fábrica de Bares, the company that owns Bar Brahma, which would operate the screens under a 15-year cooperation agreement with the city.

Clean City Law vs. Glowing Screens

The proposal already cleared its first institutional hurdle in February, when the Municipal Council for Historic Preservation (Conpresp) approved the installation. But the harder test comes Wednesday, when the project faces the Urban Landscape Protection Commission (CPPU) — the body that enforces São Paulo‘s globally admired Lei Cidade Limpa. Enacted in 2007, the law banned billboards, large signage, and outdoor advertising across the entire city, turning São Paulo from one of the world’s most visually polluted metropolises into a model of clean urban design adopted as inspiration from Tokyo to Buenos Aires.

City Hall insists the screens will not carry commercial advertising. The plan calls for cultural projections, public service campaigns, and immersive art installations — not product placements. Mayor Ricardo Nunes has framed the project as a modernization of the clean-city framework rather than its dismantling. But the Brazilian Out-of-Home Advertising Association (Abooh) is pushing back, criticizing the lack of transparency and industry consultation. Its president, Felipe Viante, said the project was advanced without allowing the advertising sector to participate or even comment. Preservationists worry that the distinction between “cultural content” and “advertising” will erode over the 15-year life of the concession.

World Cup Ambitions and a Bigger Agenda

The timing is not accidental. São Paulo is a host city for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and the city government wants the boulevard operational in the second half of the year to serve as a public gathering point for match screenings and cultural programming during the tournament. In exchange for the LED concession, the private partner must fund the restoration of the Church of Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Homens Pretos and the Mãe Preta statue at Largo do Paissandu, as well as the historic Nichile Clock at Praça Antônio Prado, alongside new street furniture along the avenue.

Meanwhile, city councilman Rubinho Nunes is pushing legislation that would go further, creating designated “lighting districts” where LED installations could be permitted in other high-traffic areas like Avenida Paulista and the Santa Ifigênia electronics corridor. The bill has passed its first vote and awaits a second. Whether São Paulo’s clean-city experiment can accommodate a glowing exception — or whether one exception will open the floodgates — is the question the consultation is really asking.