San Nicolás is one of the
neighbourhoods of
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...
,
Argentina
Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...
, sharing most of the city and national government
Neighborhood of Buenos Aires with neighboring
Montserrat
Montserrat ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is part of the Leeward Islands, the northern portion of the Lesser Antilles chain of the West Indies. Montserrat is about long and wide, wit ...
and home to much of the
financial sector. It is referred usually as ''El Centro'' ("The Centre"), and the part east of the
9 de Julio Avenue is known as ''
Microcentro''.
The limits of the neighbourhood are the
Córdoba,
Callao,
Rivadavia, La Rábida Norte and Eduardo Madero Avenues. The district is home to 33,305 inhabitants.
History
The area was named for the ''San Nicolás'' Parish, consecrated in 1773. Demolished when work on
Ninth of July Avenue started, the
Obelisk of Buenos Aires now stands in its place. The future
Metropolitan Cathedral of Buenos Aires was also built in the San Nicolás area between 1770 and 1822. Prospering following the establishment of the
Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata
The Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata or Viceroyalty of Buenos Aires ( or Virreinato de Buenos Aires or ) meaning "River of the Silver", also called the "Viceroyalty of River Plate" in some scholarly writings, in southern South America, was ...
, Buenos Aires merchants had Boneo's Pier built in 1802, quickly becoming the city's main shipping terminal. The
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...
opened a
consulate
A consulate is the office of a consul. A type of mission, it is usually subordinate to the state's main representation in the capital of that foreign country (host state), usually an embassy (or, only between two Commonwealth countries, a ...
here in 1794, leading to the development of a sizable
British community in the area, which became known as the "English borough." They founded the English Merchants' Society in 1810 and the British Consulate became home to the first modern bank in Buenos Aires, in 1822.

Enjoying close commercial ties to the British Empire, in 1830 Governor
Juan Manuel de Rosas
Juan Manuel José Domingo Ortiz de Rozas y López de Osornio (30 March 1793 – 14 March 1877), nicknamed "Restorer of the Laws", was an Argentine politician and army officer who ruled Buenos Aires Province and briefly the Argentine Confedera ...
donated land in the area for the benefit of the new
St. John the Baptist Anglican Church, the oldest in existence in Buenos Aires. A growing community from the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
established the first
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...
church nearby in 1836. The growing importance of the area as a financial center was highlighted by the 1854 establishment of the
Buenos Aires Stock Exchange. San Nicolás remains the financial center of Argentina, something underscored by the presence of the
Argentine Central Bank and the
National Bank, Argentina's largest. This area also saw the opening of the first
railway station
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...
in Latin America, which went in service in 1857, facing what today is the Colón Theatre.
Several well-known members of the English community lived in the neighborhood of San Nicolás, including the
Gowland's, belonging to a
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
family. In 1862 the British established the
Bank of London and Río de la Plata, located in the corners of the streets Piedad and Reconquista.
The rapid development of the
Argentine economy after 1875 made itself evident in San Nicolás in the reclaiming of riverfront land, where the shore popular with washerwomen became the ''Paseo de Julio'' (today
Leandro Alem Avenue) and lots such as the central artillery field became city parks. The area's network of horse-drawn trolleys gave way in 1913 to the first
metro stations in the Southern Hemisphere and renowned institutions such as the Colón and Cervantes Theatres were followed in the 1920s and 1930s by the addition of
Diagonal Norte
In geometry, a diagonal is a line segment joining two vertex (geometry), vertices of a polygon or polyhedron, when those vertices are not on the same edge (geometry), edge. Informally, any sloping line is called diagonal. The word ''diagonal'' ...
Avenue, landmarks such as the
Buenos Aires Central Post Office, and one of the greatest concentrations of popular theatres and cinemas in the world.
San Nicolás acquired its approximate, present layout when, in 1936, five city blocks were demolished (including numerous historical landmarks, such as the ''Mercado del Plata'' and the San Nicolás Parish) for the first stage of the
Ninth of July Avenue.
Economy
Incorporating most of the
Buenos Aires Central Business District, San Nicolás is home to the headquarters of numerous leading Argentine firms, including
Aerolíneas Argentinas,
[Terms and Conditions]
" Aerolíneas Argentinas. Retrieved on January 28, 2011. Aerolíneas Argentinas S.A., with legal domicile in:547 Bouchard St. – 9th Floor – Zip Code: 1106 ABG - Buenos Aires - Argentina-" the National Bank,
Banco Macro,
Bank of the City of Buenos Aires, ''
La Nación
''La Nación'' () is an Argentine daily newspaper. As the country's leading conservative newspaper, ''La Nación''s main competitor is the more liberal ''Clarín (Argentine newspaper), Clarín''. It is regarded as a newspaper of record for Argen ...
'',
Bunge y Born, the
Macri Group, and most of the
Buenos Aires Stock Exchange leaders, as well as the local offices of a number of international companies, such as
BankBoston,
BBVA
Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, S.A. (), better known by its initialism BBVA, is a Spanish multinational financial services company based in Bilbao, with operative offices in Madrid. It is one of the largest financial institutions in the world, ...
,
Citibank,
Deutsche Bank
Deutsche Bank AG (, ) is a Germany, German multinational Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange.
...
,
HSBC
HSBC Holdings plc ( zh, t_hk=滙豐; initialism from its founding member The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) is a British universal bank and financial services group headquartered in London, England, with historical and business li ...
,
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...
,
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
,
Santander Bank, and
Techint. It is also the location of much of the
Florida Street retail district, the important
Galerías Pacífico shopping arcade,
Luna Park Arena, and the
Corrientes Avenue cinema and
theater
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors to present experiences of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communi ...
district.
[Barriada: San Nicolás ]
/ref>
Image gallery
File:Buenos Aires - San Nicolás - Diagonal Norte.jpg, Pedestrian section of Diagonal Norte Avenue
File:Fuente de la Plaza de Mayo.jpg, The National Bank and State Intelligence Offices (''left to right'')
File:Safico Building Avenida Corrientes.jpg, Corrientes Avenue
File:Buenos Aires - San Nicolás - Carlos Pellegrini.jpg, Corner of Corrientes and 9 July Avenues
File:Buenos Aires - Jacarandá.jpg, Jacarandas in bloom, Lavalle Park
File:Buenos Aires-Florida y Diagonal Norte-Subte Catedral.jpg, Florida Street at Diagonal Norte Avenue
File:Teatro Cervantes 01.jpg, Cervantes Theatre
File:CatedralMetropolitanaBA004.jpg, Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral
File:Buenos Aires-ColonTeatre-P3050009.jpg, Teatro Colón
File:Ex Banco Alemán Transatlántico.JPG, German Transatlantic Bank
File:Torre Bouchard desde Alem.JPG, Torre Bouchard, the headquarters of Aerolíneas Argentinas
File:Avenida Corrientes Jousten Hotel.jpg, Jousten Hotel
File:Teatro Gran Rex Avenida Corrientes.jpg, Gran Rex Theatre
File:Buenos Aires-Retiro(CatalinasNorte)-P3090002.JPG, Office buildings along Eduardo Madero Avenue
File:Buenos_Aires-San_Nicolás-Luna_Park.jpg, Luna Park stadium
References
External links
*
San Nicolás Neighbourhood
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:San Nicolas, Buenos Aires
Neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires