Paseo Ahumada

This guide to Paseo Ahumada in Santiago starts in the wreckage after a catastrophic earthquake tore through the street in May 1647, when panicked residents argued the site was cursed and pushed to move the whole capital west to Talagante or south to Quillota. It follows Valeriano de Ahumada, an alcalde whose family had lived on this block since his father settled here in the 1580s, as he dug in and argued against abandoning the ground. For most of its later life the street stayed clogged with carriages and streetcars until the city closed it to traffic in 1975 and paved it in stone for walkers only.