(For the photo on the right: online travel description by by LenR from Townsville, Australia)

"Montevideo's showpiece plaza contains some of the city's most impressive architecture, including its best-known landmark, the massive Italianate edifice of the Palacio Salvo, designed by an Italian architect Mario Palanti who was living in Buenos Aires. The building, finished in 1925, was originally intended as a hotel, but now comprises residential apartments and offices. For many decades it was the tallest building in South America, and is built on the site where Gerardo Matos Rodriguez is credited with writing the first tango in 1917."

Source: WTL digitized slide photograph© on site in Montevideo, 1985.
Comments: Two photos of the Plaza de la Independencia. On the left, the best angle for a photo on a gray day. On the right the Palacio Salvo, as described above. The monument in both photos is of José Gervasio Artigas Arnal 1764 – 1850), the Uruguayan national hero who is known as the father of Uruguayan independence.