Leandro Alem Avenue
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Avenida Leandro N. Alem is one of the principal thoroughfares in
Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
,
Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
, and a commercial nerve center of the city's San Nicolás and Retiro districts. It joins Avenida del Libertador and Avenida Paseo Colón, its northern and southern continuation respectively.


Overview

By way of a beautification effort, Viceroy
Juan José de Vértiz y Salcedo Juan José de Vértiz y Salcedo (1719 in Mérida, Yucatán – 1799 in Madrid, Spain) was a Spanish colonial politician born in New Spain, and Viceroy of the Río de la Plata. Biography Son of a prominent peninsular politician, he studied i ...
had a two-lane street built along what was then the shores of the
Río de la Plata The Río de la Plata (, "river of silver"), also called the River Plate or La Plata River in English, is the estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River at Punta Gorda. It empties into the Atlantic Ocean and fo ...
. Marking the eastern end of the city, the thoroughfare was landscaped with cottonwood trees (''alamos'', in Spanish), and was thus inaugurated in 1780 as the ''Paseo de la Alameda''. The paseo became a popular weekend promenade, and its contiguous shores an unofficial riverfront park popular with bathers until an 1809 edict banned the practice for reasons of "moral terpitude." The frontage remained flood-prone, and in 1846, Governor Juan Manuel de Rosas had a contention wall six blocks long built along the paseo. Inaugurated in March 1848 as the Paseo
Encarnación Ezcurra María de la Encarnación Ezcurra (March 25, 1795 – October 20, 1838) was an Argentine political activist, wife of Juan Manuel de Rosas. She was the daughter of Juan Ignacio Ezcurra and Teodora de Arguibel. She married Rosas on March 16, 1813 ...
(in honor of his wife), Rosas had it renamed the ''Paseo de Julio'' that October in honor of the Ninth of July, date of the
Argentine Declaration of Independence What today is commonly referred as the Independence of Argentina was declared on July 9, 1816, by the Congress of Tucumán. In reality, the congressmen who were assembled in Tucumán declared the independence of the United Provinces of Sou ...
(the road's southern half was renamed ''Paseo Colón'', in honor of
Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus * lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo * es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón * pt, Cristóvão Colombo * ca, Cristòfor (or ) * la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...
, in 1857). An
English Argentine English Argentines (also known as Anglo-Argentines) are citizens of Argentina or the children of Argentine citizens brought up in Argentina, who can claim ancestry originating in England. The English settlement in Argentina (the arrival of Eng ...
investor, Edward Taylor, opened a pier along the promenade in 1855, and the flood-control walls were extended northwards to Recoleta, and south to
San Telmo San Telmo ("Saint Pedro González Telmo") is the oldest ''barrio'' (neighborhood) of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is a well-preserved area of the Argentine metropolis and is characterized by its colonial buildings. Cafes, tango parlors and antiqu ...
, in subsequent works completed in 1865.Buenos Aires.gov: Paseo de Julio
Immigration in Argentina Immigration to Argentina began in several millennia BCE with the arrival of different populations from Asia to the Americas through Beringia, according to the most accepted theories, and were slowly populating the Americas. Upon arrival of ...
afterwards made the Paseo a veritable bazaar, in which Italian
trattoria A ''trattoria'' (plural: ''trattorie'') is an Italian-style eating establishment that is generally much less formal than a '' ristorante'', but more formal than an '' osteria''. A ''trattoria'' rooted in tradition may typically provide no pr ...
s, French bistrots, German beer halls, and Greek restaurants operated alongside brothels and seedy bars. The increasingly commercial desirability of the street, however, prompted the city to mandate in 1875 that all buildings along it be designed with
porticos A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...
, a regulation still in force and one which forced the paseo's more precarious establishments to close.Walter, Richard J. ''Politics and Urban Growth in Buenos Aires, 1910-1942''. Cambridge University Press, 1993. A sudden economic and population boom led the new President of Argentina,
Julio Roca Alejo Julio Argentino Roca Paz (July 17, 1843 – October 19, 1914) was an army general and statesman who served as President of Argentina from 1880 to 1886 and from 1898 to 1904. Roca is the most important representative of the Generation ...
, to commission the development in 1881 of an ambitious port to supplement the recently developed facilities at
La Boca La Boca (; "the Mouth", probably of the Matanza River) is a neighborhood (''barrio'') of Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. It retains a strong Italian flavour, many of its early settlers having originated in the city of Genoa. Geography L ...
, in Buenos Aires' southside. Approved by the Argentine Congress in 1882 and financed by the prominent
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
-based
Barings Bank Barings Bank was a British merchant bank based in London, and one of England's oldest merchant banks after Berenberg Bank, Barings' close collaborator and German representative. It was founded in 1762 by Francis Baring, a British-born member ...
(the chief underwriter of Argentine bonds and investment, at the time), the project required the
reclaiming In linguistics, reappropriation, reclamation, or resignification is the cultural process by which a group reclaims words or artifacts that were previously used in a way disparaging of that group. It is a specific form of a semantic change (i.e. ...
of over 200 hectares (500 acres) of underwater land and was accompanied by the widening of the Paseo de Julio into a
boulevard A boulevard is a type of broad avenue planted with rows of trees, or in parts of North America, any urban highway. Boulevards were originally circumferential roads following the line of former city walls. In American usage, boulevards may ...
.Puerto Madero: history
These improvements were capped by the installation of a decorative fountain on the median, for which an Argentine student of Auguste Rodin's, Lola Mora, was commissioned. Unveiled in 1903, the ''Font of the
Nereids In Greek mythology, the Nereids or Nereides ( ; grc, Νηρηΐδες, Nērēḯdes; , also Νημερτές) are sea nymphs (female spirits of sea waters), the 50 daughters of the ' Old Man of the Sea' Nereus and the Oceanid Doris, sisters ...
'' sparked moralist outrage over its nude
Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...
, and the masterpiece was relocated to its present
Puerto Madero Puerto Madero, also known within the urban planning community as the Puerto Madero Waterfront, is a barrio of Buenos Aires in Argentina in the central business district, occupying a significant portion of the Río de la Plata riverbank and repres ...
site in 1918. The improved boulevard saw the replacement of clapboard structures for upscale office buildings, mostly influenced by
French architecture French architecture consists of numerous architectural styles that either originated in France or elsewhere and were developed within the territories of France. History Gallo-Roman The architecture of Ancient Rome at first adopted the ext ...
, and all distinguished by their archways. Among the most notable were the head offices of the Nicolás Mihanovich Shipping Company and
Bunge y Born Bunge & Born was a multinational corporation based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, whose diverse interests included food processing and international trade in grains and oilseeds. It is now known as Bunge Limited. History Bunge & Born was founded in 1 ...
(then Argentina's leading grain exporter) and the
Buenos Aires Stock Exchange The Buenos Aires Stock Exchange (BCBA; es, Bolsa de Comercio de Buenos Aires) is the organization responsible for the operation of Argentina's primary stock exchange located at Buenos Aires CBD. Founded in 1854, it is the successor to the ''Banco ...
's new headquarters (1916). The
election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...
that year of longtime universal male suffrage activist and UCR leader
Hipólito Yrigoyen Juan Hipólito del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús Yrigoyen (; 12 July 1852 – 3 July 1933) was an Argentine politician of the Radical Civic Union and two-time President of Argentina, who served his first term from 1916 to 1922 and his second ...
resulted in the boulevard's renaming in honor of Leandro Alem, the founder of the centrist UCR, in a November 1919 ordinance. The UCR government completed the avenue's best-known landmark, the Buenos Aires Central Post Office, in 1928, though a 1930 coup d'état resulted in the return of conservative rule. Changes in national politics did not rename or adversely impact the avenue, which was further widened and improved by Mayor José Guerrico in 1931, adding new medians to delimit bus and taxi lanes, and giving the boulevard its approximate current layout. The avenue's eclectic architectural selection was added to by rationalist buildings such as the Comega (1930) and the 42-story Alas (1950), which remained the tallest in Argentina until 1995. President Juan Perón, who had the Alas built, ordered the avenue's stretch north of Plaza San Martín renamed '' Avenida del Libertador'' in 1950, to commemorate the centennial of General
José de San Martín José Francisco de San Martín y Matorras (25 February 177817 August 1850), known simply as José de San Martín () or '' the Liberator of Argentina, Chile and Peru'', was an Argentine general and the primary leader of the southern and centr ...
's death (San Martín is known as the Liberator of Argentina and Perú). Zoning changes encted in 1966 allowed the development of the Catalinas Norte business park at the avenue's northern end, bringing with it the International style to the avenue's cityscape. Leandro Alem remains one of the city's most valuable
commercial real estate Commercial property, also called commercial real estate, investment property or income property, is real estate (buildings or land) intended to generate a profit, either from capital gains or rental income. Commercial property includes office b ...
addresses, and its last undeveloped lots, municipal property totalling no more than 15,000 m² (160,000 ft²) and estimated to be worth around US$80 million, were publicly proposed for sale in 2009.''Clarín'' (8/11/2009)
/ref>


Points of Interest

File:The Alas Building panorama.jpg, View of the avenue and the
Alas Building The Alas Building ( es, Edificio Alas) is a Rationalist residential and office building located in the San Nicolás section of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It stands at a height of 141 metres (463 ft) and houses 41 floors. Alas was the tallest bui ...
File:Buenos Aires - Retiro - Av. Leandro N. Alem - 200807.jpg, Retiro Business District File:Leandro Alem 0033.jpg, Catalinas Norte File:Old & New Buildings in Buenos Aires.jpg,
Bunge y Born Bunge & Born was a multinational corporation based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, whose diverse interests included food processing and international trade in grains and oilseeds. It is now known as Bunge Limited. History Bunge & Born was founded in 1 ...
headquarters File:Buenos Aires - Bolsa de Comercio.jpg, Stock Exchange File:SecretariaComunicaciones055.JPG, Central Post Office


References


External links

{{coord, 34, 36, 11, S, 58, 22, 13, W, display=title Leandro N. Alem