The city had come to watch a bridge open on the last day of the year.
En el último día de 1936, Lima cruzó un umbral tanto físico como simbólico: un puente de acero sobre el Rímac unió lo que décadas de abandono habían mantenido separado. El presidente Óscar R. Benavides inauguró el Puente del Ejército no solo como obra de ingeniería, sino como declaración de que el Estado podía transformar el olvido en promesa. En una ciudad que aún cargaba las cicatrices de la Guerra del Pacífico, el acero y el concreto se convirtieron en el lenguaje de la reconciliación urbana.
- El Rímac llevaba medio siglo sumido en pobreza, criminalidad y enfermedad, desconectado del resto de Lima como si el río fuera una frontera moral tanto como geográfica.
- La urgencia era real: los equipos trabajaron turnos de dieciocho horas para terminar antes de que las lluvias de verano crecieran el río y destruyeran lo que ya se había construido.
- La ceremonia reunió en un mismo espacio a arzobispos, militares, banqueros y obreros ferroviarios, como si el puente exigiera que toda la ciudad se reconociera en su propia obra.
- Cuando se cortó la cinta a las 12:40, miles de personas cruzaron detrás de la caravana presidencial, reclamando con sus pasos un espacio que hasta entonces les había sido negado.
- El puente no solo superó sus pruebas de carga con apenas cuatro milímetros de flexión, sino que abrió el camino a un coliseo deportivo, nuevas rutas comerciales y la expansión metropolitana de Lima.
El último día de 1936, mientras los cines de Lima proyectaban comedias de Laurel y Hardy, el presidente Óscar R. Benavides se preparaba para inaugurar algo más duradero que cualquier película. Al mediodía del 31 de diciembre, el Puente del Ejército —un tramo de acero de 60 metros sobre el Rímac— fue entregado a la ciudad con discursos, vestimentas eclesiásticas y el peso de cincuenta años de promesas incumplidas.
La obra había sido una carrera contra el tiempo y contra el río. Desde el 5 de agosto, cuadrillas rotativas trabajaron dieciocho horas diarias para levantar una estructura de 70 metros de largo y 13 de ancho antes de que llegaran las lluvias de verano. El costo total ascendió a 700,000 soles, distribuidos entre el puente principal, un ramal ferroviario hacia el Callao, la canalización del propio río y las rampas de acceso. Un ingeniero alemán, el Dr. W. Boehm, supervisó los aspectos técnicos junto a la Compañía General de Construcciones del Perú.
No fueron los políticos quienes abrieron la ceremonia, sino un dirigente vecinal del Rímac y un representante de los trabajadores ferroviarios —una elección que subrayaba para quién, en teoría, se había construido el puente. Benavides habló de medio siglo de estancamiento en la ribera norte y anunció que la estructura llevaría el nombre del Ejército, cuyos efectivos habían trabajado codo a codo con los obreros civiles.
A las 12:40, una cinta roja fue cortada y la multitud cruzó el puente por primera vez. En su base quedaron grabadas tres palabras: Orden, Paz y Trabajo. El Rímac, durante tanto tiempo sinónimo de marginalidad, tenía ahora una puerta hacia el resto de Lima. El 1 de enero de 1937, El Comercio abrió su edición con esa historia: la ciudad había entrado al año nuevo con un nuevo pedazo de sí misma.
On the last day of 1936, Lima stopped to watch a bridge open. The city had been counting down to midnight, ready to ring in 1937, but President Óscar R. Benavides had other plans. At noon on December 31st, while cinemas across town were screening the latest Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy comedy, a steel and concrete span across the Rímac River was about to become real. The government had called the press. The city had come to watch.
The bridge had a name already waiting for it: Puente del Ejército—the Army Bridge. The Ministry of Public Works and Development had orchestrated the moment, and by midday the plaza filled with the machinery of state ceremony. Lima's mayor Luis Gallo Porras was there. The Archbishop, Monsignor Pedro Pascual Francisco Farfán de los Godos, stood in his vestments. District mayors from Rímac, La Victoria, the beach towns, and Callao had made the trip. Ministers, military commanders, the president of the Touring Club, engineers, bankers, merchants, and the president himself—Benavides arrived just after 12:15 in the afternoon, his military aide at his side.
But the speeches that opened the ceremony did not come from the politicians. Juan Francisco Barrenechea, a community organizer from the Rímac neighborhood, spoke first through loudspeakers positioned at the bridge's corners. Enrique Rivas, representing the railroad workers' confederation, followed. Then Federico Basadre, the director of Public Works, delivered the formal handover of the structure to the president. Basadre laid out the timeline: work had begun in earnest on August 5th and run through December 5th—four months of continuous labor, followed by three weeks of finishing: painting, adjustments, paving, sidewalks. The bridge was 70 meters long and 13 meters wide, with a 60-meter central span of steel that weighed 250 metric tons. The entire project had cost 700,000 soles: 300,000 for the main structure, 70,000 for a parallel rail bridge to Callao, 65,000 to channel and control the river itself, and 265,000 for the approach ramps and complementary work.
Benavides understood the moment's weight. In his remarks, he spoke of fifty years of stagnation on the north bank of the Rímac—fifty years since the War of the Pacific had ended in 1883. The bridge, he said, would be decisive for the development of that zone, which he called full of promise and noble aspirations. It would connect the north and south of the capital, accelerating commerce and traffic flow. He announced officially that the structure would bear the name Puente del Ejército, apparently because Peruvian Army personnel had worked alongside the construction company—the Compañía General de Construcciones del Perú, which had brought in a German engineer, Dr. W. Boehm, to oversee the technical work.
At 12:40 in the afternoon, a red ribbon that had been strung across the bridge entrance was cut. The presidential motorcade rolled through first, followed by a stream of official vehicles. Then the crowd surged forward behind them, thousands of people crossing the bridge for the first time. The work had been punishing. The construction teams had labored in eighteen-hour shifts, rotating crews to keep the work moving day and night. They had to finish before the summer rains swelled the river—if the Rímac rose before the bridge was complete, the whole project could have been jeopardized. The pavementwork alone covered twenty thousand square meters.
Before opening day, the bridge had been tested with three heavy rollers and thirty large trucks loaded with stone. It flexed only four millimeters and four-tenths—well under the half-centimeter threshold. The engineers had also channeled the river itself, digging 300 meters upstream and 120 meters downstream on the left bank to protect a sports field that was already being planned—what would become the famous Coliseo del Puente del Ejército. The Rímac district, which had been dominated by crime, poverty, and disease, suddenly had a gateway to the capital. The people who lived there understood what the bridge meant. They had watched it rise through those exhausting months, and they came to celebrate its opening.
On the commemorative plaque at the bridge's base, three words were inscribed: Orden, Paz y Trabajo—Order, Peace, and Work. It was the motto of Benavides's government, and it captured what the bridge represented: not just steel and concrete, but a promise of progress, a physical link between the city and the zones it had left behind. By the time El Comercio published its New Year's edition on January 1st, 1937, the bridge was the lead story. Lima had entered the new year with a new piece of itself.
Citações Notáveis
The bridge will be decisive for the development of the traditional and active zone situated north of the Rímac, full of promising prospects and noble aspirations.— President Óscar R. Benavides, at the bridge's inauguration
The bridge was loaded with three rollers and thirty large trucks carrying stone and flexed only four millimeters and four-tenths—well under the safety threshold.— El Comercio, reporting on pre-opening structural tests
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why did they choose that exact moment—New Year's Eve—to open a bridge?
Timing was everything. The construction had to finish before the summer rains hit the river. They'd been working eighteen-hour shifts since August to beat the seasonal flooding. Opening on December 31st meant they'd made their deadline, and it meant the president could claim a triumph as the year turned. It was political theater, yes, but also practical necessity.
The source mentions the Rímac was plagued by crime and disease. Did the bridge actually change that?
The bridge was the first real connection—a physical acknowledgment that the north bank existed and mattered. Before this, the district was isolated, abandoned. The bridge didn't solve poverty overnight, but it opened access. Commerce could flow. People could move. It was a signal that the city was willing to invest in that zone.
The workers did eighteen-hour shifts. How did they sustain that?
The source doesn't dwell on it, but you can read between the lines. They rotated crews in two shifts to keep the work continuous. The urgency was real—miss the window before the rains, and the whole project fails. The workers understood the stakes. And there was something else: the people of Rímac were watching. They came to see the bridge rise. That mattered to the crews.
What's striking is that the first speeches came from community organizers, not politicians.
That's the detail that reveals the truth of it. Benavides was smart. He let the neighborhood speak first—the man from the local improvement society, the railroad worker. Then the engineers and ministers. It was a hierarchy, but it acknowledged that this bridge was for ordinary people, not just for the state.
The bridge cost 700,000 soles in 1936. Was that a lot of money?
Enough that the government broke it down in the newspaper—every line item published. They wanted people to know where the money went. It was an investment in the future, and they were defending it publicly.
What happened to the bridge after that day?
The source doesn't say. But it became the foundation for everything that followed—the sports complex, the avenue that would be renamed Alfonso Ugarte, the expansion of Lima northward. One bridge, one red ribbon cut, and the city's geography changed.