Maldonado Stream

The Maldonado Stream, (Arroyo Maldonado) is an underground storm sewer in the city Buenos Aires, Argentina, that runs below Juan B. Justo Avenue. Originally a stream draining into the Río de la Plata, its 21.3 kilometres (13.2 mi) length goes through 10 of the 47 barrios of the city: Versalles, Liniers, Villa Luro, Vélez Sarsfield, Floresta, Villa Santa Rita, Villa Mitre, Caballito, Villa Crespo, and Palermo.

The stream was one of the natural limits of the city, before the Belgrano and Flores neighborhoods were incorporated. It is named after the legend of La Maldonado, a woman that arrived with Pedro de Mendoza in 1536, and was abandoned in the plain, on the margins of the stream.

The stream became a garbage dump in time, and during the rainy season became a polluted waterway made dangerous because of its overflows. The authorities decided via a municipal ordinance on August 25, 1924, to tube the stream as a final solution to all the problems that caused in a growing city, and in 1928 excavations started. The Maldonado drainage system, one of the most significant public works ever built in Buenos Aires, was designed as a part of a broader drainage system in the city; it was commissioned and designed by the state-owned Obras Sanitarias de la Nación and engineered by German firm Siemens-Schuckert.

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