Back in the late 1930's, American President Franklin Roosevelt realized the Nazis were making big inroads in Latin America, (especially Argentina, with its large German population)..
He suddenly noticed we had "Good Neighbors" to the South and goodwill ambassadors like Donald Duck mixed it up with Latin feathered friends, Carmen Miranda came to Hollywood,
and aid flowed to places where Congress would not have approved it before..
NYC Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia figured the Big Apple would do its part by officially renaming Sixth Avenue in Manhattan as the "Avenue of the Americas"-- and street lamps were hung with standards of all the Latin American countries as you went up the Avenue.
The locals, however, were not impressed, and only on official business stationery did it ever become the Avenue of the Americas. NY'ers stuck resolutely with the name of Sixth Avenue and if you said "Avenue of the Americas" it revealed you right away as someone from out of town ( or at least seriously out of touch).
Now it appears people are just sliding back into using Sixth Avenue more and more ...as I said, phone listings will still probably show "Ave of the Americas" for some time yet, but for how long I don't know
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