Recreio da Juventude (English: Youth Recreation) is a club in the Brazilian city of Caxias do Sul. Founded in 1912, it is one of the oldest and most traditional clubs in the city. It has engaged in intense social, cultural, recreational, and sports activities since its foundation; the Esporte Clube Juventude branched out from the club. Currently, the Recreio da Juventude has a social headquarters, a large countryside headquarters with sports and leisure equipment, and remains the owner of the building of the old Central Cinema, which although deactivated since 1990, was one of the main show houses in Caxias, offering cinema, theater, and music. It won several titles in sports and the Central Cinema and the social headquarters building are listed as a heritage site.
History
The Recreio da Juventude was created on December 28, 1912, as a dissidence of the Clube Juvenil, by 29 young people in a house owned by José Bragatti, at 66 Júlio de Castilhos Avenue. Its name came from a provision in its first statute that admitted only single men; this restriction would soon be repealed. The first to assume the presidency was Ferdinando Jaconi. The official ceremonies to inaugurate the social headquarters took place on February 4, 1913, and began with a procession of ladies that left Ludovico Sartori's house in the morning carrying the flag made by the families of Caxias, which was delivered to the president in the first headquarters at Dante Alighieri Square, among cheers and speeches. Afterwards, there was a lunch at the Firenze Hotel, a civic march down Julio Avenue in the afternoon, and in the evening, the solemn inauguration of the board of directors and a dance that extended into the early hours of the morning.
In the beginning, the club did not have its own headquarters and its main focus was soccer. The first team was amateur and established on June 29, 1913, with the name Sport Club Foot Ball Juventude. This creation drew the attention of the community of Caxias, and the entire day was marked by civil and religious ceremonies, parades, and parties; its first president was Antônio Chiaradia Neto. On March 16, 1915, it was decided to completely disassociate the soccer team from Recreio da Juventude, forming an autonomous entity. It is the current Esporte Clube Juventude, the oldest team in town still active.
From 1914 on, the social and recreational activities intensified, and by 1916 there was already one dance a month; the club's birthday parties were especially brilliant. Initially, it was defined as an elite club, achieving "beautiful results and charming graces for our social environment, gathering the hard-working people of this land, linking the families of our best society, pushing the youth to conquer more and more the true social culture", as described by the press of the time. When the Recreio was in the Círculo Operário Caxiense building, it hosted the first edition of the Grape Festival. It had several rented headquarters until it inaugurated its first facilities in 1918, in a big house located where the gardens of the Pompeia Hospital are today.
In 1924, the club inaugurated a large space for film projection in its headquarters, with a stable orchestra and capacity for 600 people. In 1925, the members bought a plot of land in Dante Square from the Sartori family to build the Central Cinema, a large movie theater that opened in 1928. The building had an elegant and richly decorated facade, with statuary and masks by Estacio Zambelli, matching the sumptuous interior decoration. As the same year it opened, the city had lost its Apollo Theater to a fire, the Central took over as the town's main playhouse.
A women's branch called Éden Juventudista was created in 1927. Éden was founded by the poet Vico Thompson and a group of society ladies, with Ida Sartori Paternoster as honorary president. It was the first cultural club in the city composed and managed by women. According to Rodrigo Lopes, "the Recreio da Juventude broke the customs of a very conservative time, allowing the feminine contribution in the organization of several cultural activities".