Buenos Aires Central Business District

The Buenos Aires Central Business District is the main commercial centre of Buenos Aires, Argentina, though not an official city ward. While the '' barrios'' of Puerto Madero and Retiro house important business complexes and modern high-rise architecture, the area traditionally known as ''Microcentro'' (Spanish: Microcenter) is located within San Nicolás and Monserrat, roughly coinciding with the area around the historic center of the Plaza de Mayo. The ''Microcentro'' has a wide concentration of offices, service companies and banks, and a large circulation of pedestrians on working days. Another name given to this unofficial ''barrio'' is ''La City'', which refers more precisely to an even smaller sector within the ''Microcentro'', where almost all the banking headquarters of the country are concentrated.

Overview

The area was the site of the first European settlement in what later became Buenos Aires. Its south–north axis runs along Leandro Alem Avenue, from Belgrano Avenue in the south to Retiro railway station in the north, and its east–west axis runs from the Buenos Aires Ecological Reserve to Ninth of July Avenue. The district is centered around the San Nicolás ward, and includes the northern section of Montserrat, the section of Retiro south of Santa Fe Avenue, and the section of Puerto Madero west of the Buenos Aires Docklands.

The district is the financial, corporate, and cultural hub of Buenos Aires, and of Argentina. The economy of Buenos Aires was the 13th largest among the world's cities in 2006 at US$245 billion in purchasing power parity, which, based on the population of that year, translates into US21,500 per capita. The Buenos Aires Human Development Index (0.925 in 1998) is likewise high by international standards.
The Port of Buenos Aires is one of the busiest in South America; navigable rivers by way of the Río de la Plata connect the port to northeastern Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. As a result, it serves as the distribution hub for a vast area of the south-eastern region of the South American continent. Tax collection related to the port has caused many political problems in the past.

Geography

Buenos Aires CBD lies in the Pampa region, except some zones like the Buenos Aires Ecological Reserve, the Boca Juniors (football) Club "sports city", Jorge Newbery Airport, the Puerto Madero neighborhood and the main port itself. These latter were all built on reclaimed land along the coast of the Rio de la Plata (the world's largest estuary).

The region was formerly crossed by different creeks and lagoons, some of which were refilled and other tubed. Among the most important creeks are: Maldonado, Vega, Medrano, Cildañez and White. In 1908 many creeks were channeled and rectified, as floods were damaging the city's infrastructure. Starting in 1919, most creeks were enclosed. Notably, the Maldonado was tubed in 1954, and currently runs below Juan B. Justo Avenue (north of this district).

Facing the Río de la Plata estuary, the frontage remained flood-prone, and in 1846, Governor Juan Manuel de Rosas had a contention wall six blocks long built along the existing promenade. An English Argentine investor, Edward Taylor, opened a pier along the promenade in 1855, and the flood-control walls were extended northwards to Recoleta, and south to San Telmo, in subsequent works completed in 1865.Buenos Aires.gov: Paseo de Julio

A sudden economic and population boom led the new President of Argentina, Julio Roca, to commission the development in 1881 of an ambitious port to supplement the recently developed facilities at La Boca, in Buenos Aires's southside. Approved by the Argentine Congress in 1882 and financed by the prominent London-based Barings Bank (the chief underwriter of Argentine bonds and investment, at the time), the project required the reclaiming of over 200 hectares (500 acres) of underwater land and was accompanied by the widening of the promenade into what became Leandro Alem Avenue.Puerto Madero: history

Architecture

Italian and French influences increased after the overthrow of strongman Juan Manuel de Rosas in 1852, and particularly upon the advent of the modernizing Generation of 1880. French architecture inspired the area's redevelopment during the beginning of the 20th century, and eclectic designs that drew from Beaux-Arts, French Academy, and Second Empire architecture were reflected by numerous historic buildings in this districts from the era, notably the headquarters for '' La Prensa'', City Hall, the City Legislature, Buenos Aires Customs, Palace of Justice, the National Congress, the Teatro Colón, the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange, the Buenos Aires Central Post Office, and along most of the Avenida de Mayo and Diagonal Norte Avenue.
Some of the most prominent contributors to the district's architecture from the era included Francesco Tamburini, Vittorio Meano, Julio Dormal, Virginio Colombo, Juan Antonio Buschiazzo, Mario Palanti, and Francisco Gianotti. Later significant additions include those by Alejandro Christophersen, Alejandro Bustillo (most notably the National Bank), Andrés Kalnay, Eduardo Le Monnier, and Francisco Salamone.

The Alas Building, commissioned by Juan Perón and built in the early 1950s, was the tallest in Argentina until 1995, and was one of numerous commercial structures built in the Rationalist style in this area during that time. Since the 1960s, newer, high-technology buildings were designed in the district by Argentine architects Clorindo Testa, Santiago Sánchez Elía, César Pelli, and Mario Roberto Álvarez, by firms such as SEPRA Arquitectos and MSGSSS, and by Uruguayan architect Rafael Viñoly. Some of the more notable commercial developments completed since then have included the Catalinas Norte office park, Torre Bouchard, Bouchard Plaza, Galicia Tower, the Repsol-YPF Tower, the Banco Macro Tower, and the BBVA Tower.

Districts

San Nicolás

San Nicolás is one of the districts that shares most of the city and national government structure with neighboring Montserrat, and is home of the business district's financial center. It's seldom referred to as ''San Nicolás'', but usually as ''The Center'' ("City Centre"), and the part east of the 9 de Julio Avenue is called ''Microcentro'' ("Micro-centre").

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 Central Bank and the National Bank, Argentina's largest. The rapid development of the Argentine economy after 1875 made itself evident in San Nicolás with the reclaiming of riverfront land by businessmen Francisco Seeber and Eduardo Madero, and the shore hitherto popular among washerwomen became the ''Paseo de Julio'' (today Leandro Alem Avenue).

The construction of Corrientes and Nueve de Julio Avenues in the 1930s further modernized San Nicolás, which had hitherto been limited in its development by its colonial grid of narrow streets. Florida Street, most of which is in San Nicolás, is the city's best-known pedestrianized street.Barriada: San Nicolás
Its most discernible landmark is the Galerías Pacífico shopping arcade.

The district is home to the Argentine Supreme Court, the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral

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