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 Tacna, after the city of the same name.[2] Prior to this renaming, each block (cuadra) had a unique name:
Block 1: Manita, for reasons not known. According to Ricardo Palma, a waving hand, in reality an optical illusion, guided people there.[3][4]
Block 2: Mantequería/Borriqueras, after the lard-selling stores and the donkeystables there, respectively.[5]
During the 20th century, the road underwent a major renovation after the 1940 Lima earthquake, becoming an avenue.[9] The Sanctuary of Saint Rose of Lima had a section demolished to make way for the renovations in 1959.[10] The nearby Sanctuary and Monastery of Las Nazarenas suffered a similar fate.[11] As a result of the renovations, new highrise buildings started to be built in the avenue. The Gildemeister & Co. building, built in 1928 as the first skyscraper in Lima, paled in comparison to the new construction projects of the post-1940 period.[12] The Edificio Tacna-Colmena is located at the end of the avenue, and takes its name from both avenues.[13]
The intersection with Emancipación Avenue is the location of the Edificio Oropeza, an incomplete building that has been abandoned for over three decades,[14][15] as well as that of a station of the same name of the Metropolitano bus system.
^Palma, Ricardo. "La calle de la manita". Tradiciones Peruanas (in Spanish). Vol. 3. Buenos Aires: Librería Internacional del Perú, Imprenta López. p. 227.
