THE GREAT FLORIDA STREET (By Hostel Buenos Aires)

Florida Street is, probably, the most important tourist street in our city. Since its official opening as a pedestrian street in 1913, this walk has become a kind of special showcase for Buenos Aires to exhibit itself at his best. It also has the distinctive honor of being one of the most crowded streets of the world and a Porteño pride, Florida continues to amaze.

This symbolic street is formed by 11 blocks which start in Rivadavia Avenue and end in the San Martín Square, turning into Perú Street, heading towards the south of the city, down to San Telmo. Once an old path which came from the River Plate, since 1913 Florida Street became a privileged place surrounded by some of the most important and beautiful building of our city.

This street is plagued by history: in its intersection with Perón Street, 100 years before its opening, the Argentine national anthem was sung for the first time. Later, Florida crowded with aristocratic houses which moved from the south of Buenos Aires after the yellow fever epidemic. In 1872, the walk would finally become a business street: hundreds of stores offering the latest products of European fashion.

Florida once had a streetcar and still preserves pieces of ancient colonial paving that can be seen next to a commemorative plaque in its intersection with Diagonal Norte. It’s history is built on the name of great disappeared shops as Harrods or Gath & Chávez; and commercial complexes as the Pacífico Galleries, the Jardín Galleries, the Boston Galleries and the Güemes Galleries. The intersection with Lavalle (another pedestrian street) is one of the most famous Porteño corners. Much to see, much to know, near Hostel Colonial.