Corrientes Avenue

Avenida Corrientes (English: Corrientes Avenue) is one of the principal thoroughfares of the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires. The street is intimately tied to the tango and the porteño sense of identity. Like the parallel avenues Santa Fe, Córdoba, and San Juan, it takes its name from one of the Provinces of Argentina.

It extends 69 blocks from Eduardo Madero Avenue in the eastern Puerto Madero neighborhood to the West and later to the Northwest, and ends at Federico Lacroze Avenue in the Chacarita neighborhood. Automobile traffic runs from west to east. Line B of the Buenos Aires Metro runs most of its length underneath the street.

The Asociación Amigos de la Calle Corrientes ("Friends of Corrientes Street Association") is a group that collaborates on the urban planning of the street. They have placed commemorative plaques on 40 street corners bearing the distinguished figures from the history of the tango.

It was named Del Sol during the 17th century, San Nicolás from 1738 to 1808, and De Incháurregui from 1808 until 1822, when it received its current name. Never more than a street of average width during the nineteenth century, traffic swelled after the city began its rapid westward expansion, around 1880. Horse-drawn tramways first ran on the avenue in 1887; but, they soon proved inadequate and in 1910, Mayor Joaquín de Anchorena signed a bill authorizing its widening.

The plan called for the massive razing of most of the avenue's north-side real estate and, so, met with strenuous opposition from affected landlords, retailers, as well as intellectuals like Roberto Arlt. A coup d'ètat in 1930, however, made way for the plan's implementation, carried out relentlessly until its completion, in 1936. Today, when referring to Corrientes prior to the widening, the term "Narrow Corrientes" (Corrientes Angosta) is used. The newly inaugurated avenue coincided with the construction of the Buenos Aires Obelisk, since then one of the city's most recognizable landmarks, visible for several blocks of the avenue´s downtown stretch. The opening of the Obelisk and surrounding Plaza de la República in 1936 created a roundabout at the 9th of July Avenue intersection. Corrientes, like most major city avenues, was made a one-way thoroughfare by a 1967 municipal ordinance. Growing traffic demands led to the opening of the avenue through the plaza, and around the Obelisk, in 1971.The name "Corrientes Street" (Calle Corrientes) is often still preferred over "Corrientes Avenue" (Avenida Corrientes) specially on the famous centrical stretch. With that name it appears famously in several tango lyrics (see below).

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