Avenida Leandro N. Alem
The Avenida Leandro N. Alem is one of the main thoroughfares in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires . It runs from the San Nicolás business center to Retiro .
overview
What is now Avenida Leandro N. Alem was a two-lane road along the Río de la Plata in the time of the Viceroy Juan José de Vértiz y Salcedo . To embellish it, it was planted with poplar trees and inaugurated as Paseo de la Alameda in 1780 . The paseo has become a popular promenade for walking. The embankment was used for swimming until an edict in 1809 forbade this for “moral” reasons.
However, the promenade was not safe from flooding and in 1846 the then governor Juan Manuel de Rosas had a 700 meter long protective wall built. In March 1848, this new street was opened as Paseo Encarnación Ezcurra (the name of Rosas' wife), but renamed Paseo de Julio that same year to commemorate July 9, the day of the Argentine declaration of independence. In 1855 the British-Argentine Edward Taylor opened a pier along the road and the flood walls were extended to the north, towards Recoleta , and south, towards San Telmo , and were completed in 1865. In 1857 the southern half of the street was renamed again, this time after Christopher Columbus Avenida Paseo Colón .
The wave of immigration towards the end of the 19th century was one reason why the paseo was transformed into a kind of bazaar, where Italian trattorias, French bistrots, German beer halls and Greek restaurants could be found. In 1875, the city council requested that all buildings be provided with a portico , an order that is still in force and which resulted in some of the financially or structurally insecure establishments closing.
The boom in the economy and the increase in the population led President Julio A. Roca to order the construction of a port in La Boca in 1881 . Approved by the National Congress and financed by the London Bank Barings , 200 hectares of land were made available for this purpose and the Paseo de Julio was widened into a boulevard. A fountain was commissioned from the sculptor Lola Mora to beautify the new street . Inaugurated in 1903, the Nereid Fountain caused a stir over its naked Venus and in 1918 it moved to Puerto Madero .
The clapboard houses that had been common up until then were replaced by representative office buildings, mostly in the French architectural style and provided with arcades. This also included the new headquarters of the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange from 1916. A decree of November 1916 ordered the renaming in honor of Leandro N. Alem , the founder of the UCR , the new ruling party. Under this government, the main post office of Buenos Aires was added in 1928, one of the main attractions on the new avenue.
In 1931, under Mayor José Guerrico, the street was widened again and received its current layout. Rationalist-style buildings were added to the already eclectic architecture, including the Edificio Comega (1930) and the Edificio Alas (1950). The stretch of road north of Plaza General San Martín was renamed Avenida del Libertador in honor of José de San Martín . Today the Avenida Leandro N. Alem is one of the top addresses for commercial real estate . The last remaining vacant lot, approximately 15,000 square meters, owned by the city was valued at approximately US $ 80 million and was announced for sale in 2009.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Clarín of May 25, 2000 (Spanish)
- ↑ a b Buenos Aires.gov: Paseo de Julio (Spanish) ( Memento from November 27, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
- ^ Walter, Richard J. Politics and Urban Growth in Buenos Aires, 1910-1942 . Cambridge University Press, 1993.
- ↑ Puerto Madero: history ( Memento from September 23, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Clarín of November 8, 2009 (Spanish)
Coordinates: 34 ° 36 ′ 2.3 ″ S , 58 ° 22 ′ 13.9 ″ W.