Avenida Santa Fe

Avenida Santa Fe is one of the principal thoroughfares in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The artery is essential to the imaginary axis of Barrio Norte in Buenos Aires, comprising the areas influenced by the route of the avenue through Retiro, Recoleta and Palermo neighborhoods, it is considered one of the main shopping and strolling areas of the city, its many boutiques range from elegant to edgy, which has led it to be dubbed the 'Avenue of Fashion'. Upscale Alto Palermo, at Avenida Coronel Díaz, is one of the city's best-known vertical malls. Avenida Santa Fe is also an attraction for its architecture, strongly reminiscent of Paris. Its name pays homage to the eponymous province in Argentina.

First laid out in colonial Buenos Aires as San Gregorio Street in 1774, it was at the time the northern limit of the growing port city. Following the British invasions of the Río de la Plata in 1806, it was renamed for one of the popular heroes of the invasion's defeat, Pío Rodríguez. The declaration of autonomy from the Spanish Empire in 1810 led city officials to rename it Calle Estrecha (the "Narrow Street"). The progressive Governor of the Province of Buenos Aires, Martín Rodríguez, had the narrow street widened in 1822, following which Bernardino Rivadavia, the first President of Argentina, renamed it Santa Fe Avenue. Mayor Torcuato de Alvear, inspired by the urban redevelopment works in Paris at the hand of Baron Haussmann, drew up master plans for major boulevards, running east to west, every six blocks and in the 1880s, the avenue was included in the plan and widened. A 1967 ordinance made the avenue a one-way thoroughfare, west to east.

...
Wikipedia