| Avenida Emancipación | |
| Part Of: | Damero de Pizarro |
| Namesake: | Emancipation of Peru |
| Terminus A: | Jirón de la Unión |
| Terminus B: | Plaza Ramón Castilla |
| Junction: | Jirón Camaná, Jirón Caylloma, Jirón Rufino Torrico, Tacna Ave. |
| Completion Date: | 1535 |
Emancipation Avenue (Spanish; Castilian: Avenida Emancipación; Avenida de la Emancipación), formerly known as Jirón Arequipa and Jirón Riva-Agüero,[1] is a major avenue in the Damero de Pizarro, located in the historic centre of Lima, Peru. The street starts at its intersection with the Jirón de la Unión and continues until it reaches the Plaza Ramón Castilla. It is continued to the east by Jirón Cuzco, formerly part of the avenue.[2]
The road that today constitutes the street was laid by Francisco Pizarro when he founded the city of Lima on January 18, 1535. In 1862, when a new urban nomenclature was adopted, the road was named jirón Arequipa. Prior to this renaming, each block (cuadra) had a unique name:
At the beginning of the 20th century, the was located on its first block, a café that brought together among its regulars several figures from the intellectual life of Lima at that time, such as Abraham Valdelomar, José Carlos Mariátegui and César Vallejo.
At the beginning of the 1970s, during the military government of Juan Velasco Alvarado, a plan was executed that consisted of widening the old Jirón Arequipa, which until then was an old road that preserved its narrow shape since colonial times. In 1971, the controversial widening of the avenue began, demolishing old houses that were located in the northern part of the strip.[4]
The avenue hosts the Casa Echenique, a building that once housed Carvajal, and later housed president José Rufino Echenique, Pío Tristán and Paul Gauguin (until the age of seven), all of the same family. Despite its declaration as part of the Cultural heritage of Peru on February 15, 1983, and the façade remaining intact, a large part of the interior is in ruin after it was demolished to make way for a gallery. A project by PROLIMA was announced in 2023, which aims to restore the former architecture of the house's interior.[5]