The city's middle and upper classes would later relocate further north, to Recoleta, Palermo, and Belgrano, however. This trend was reinforced by the 1953 arson of the grand Jockey Club building by a Peronist mob. Its decline, however, was slowed by both an era of relative prosperity in Argentina, as well as milestones such as the inaugural of the Hotel Claridge in 1946, the Torcuato di Tella Institute's Florida Street center in 1963 (which became a hub of Buenos Aires' avant-garde and pop art scene during the 1960s), and the 1971 conversion of the street into a promenade. Writer Jorge Luis Borges lived near the northern end, and was fond of taking walks through the semi-deserted street in the pre-dawn hours. Borges was an outspoken critic of the renovation work done on the street in 1970; he was blind, and the new arrangement of trash cans, planters, flower pots, and magazine stands was a serious accessibility risk for him. He was also influenced by his esthetic-minded friends, who saw the new scheme as a break with tradition.