Rio gets new seafront promenade ahead of Olympics

The city of Rio de Janeiro has received a new seafront promenade built in its port area and is part of a city revitalisation project for the Olympics in August, reported the promenade builders.

The boulevard, delivered on Wednesday by the builders, will be officially opened by the mayor ahead of the Olympic Games and will be monitored 24 hours a day with seven security cameras, reports Efe.

The 40,000-square-metre tourist boulevard has large gardens and spaces for pedestrians and cyclists, and is located between the revitalised Maua square -- the first instalment of the tourist strip that opened earlier in April -- and the old port warehouses of Rio de Janeiro.

The one-kilometre-long boulevard together with Maua square -- which houses the futuristic museum 'Museum of Tomorrow (Museo de Manana)', a work of the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava -- totals 80,000 square metres in area.

According to the Concessionaire Porto Novo, the consortium responsible for the project, the renewal of the entire port area of Rio de Janeiro was inspired by the revitalisation project of the port of Barcelona in 1992, when the Spanish city hosted the 1992 Olympic Games.

--IANS

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