Alameda Avenue

Avenida Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins (English: General Liberator Bernardo O'Higgins Avenue), popularly known as La Alameda (meaning, a road surrounded by poplar trees), is the main avenue of Santiago, Chile. It runs east-west in the center of the greater urban area and is 7.77 km (4.83 mi) long, and it has up to 5 lanes in each direction. It was named after Chile's founding father Bernardo O'Higgins. It was originally a branch of the Mapocho River.

The avenue is located on the former stream bed of a branch of the Mapocho River, which was drying up between 1560 and 1580. Such landforms were known by the Spaniards as Cañadas, and from there the origin of its initial name of Cañada. For many decades it was used as a landfill site, until it was converted into a boulevard by Bernardo O'Higgins during the first years of independence of the country and was named as Alameda de las Delicias.

Alameda Avenue originates immediately west of the Plaza Baquedano, as a continuation of Providencia Avenue, and runs in a generally southwesterly direction until its junction with Chile Route 68. The south section of the initial stretch of the avenue is dominated by a cluster of tower blocks called Remodelación San Borja. On the opposite side of the Alameda, the city blocks are characterized by a continuous building frontage. This urban design is broken by the Centro Cultural Gabriela Mistral. The corner of the Alameda and Portugal Avenue is home to the headquarters of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.

Heading west, the avenue skirts the southern edge of the Cerro Santa Lucía. The following stretch of the Alameda consists of almost unbroken blocks of mostly office and commercial buildings interspersed with some historical buildings, including the Biblioteca Nacional de Chile, San Francisco Church, Club de la Unión and behind it the building housing the , as well as the old building serving as headquarters for the University of Chile, which faces the Paseo Ahumada. West of the just mentioned street and a half block north of the Alameda is located the Edificio Ariztía.

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Wikipedia