Argüelles

Before the houses, this was the upper slope of the Montaña del Príncipe Pío, sloping ground to the west of Madrid, next to where the Estación del Norte would open and where the Montaña barracks stood. The neighborhood was laid out as part of the Ensanche around 1860, when the city was bursting its walls and climbing toward the river. Those who came to live here were well-off, professional people, drawn by the wide streets and the high air. And it was given the name of Agustín Argüelles, the liberal from Cádiz whom the Cortes entrusted with educating Isabella II. Hence the street map revolves around the child queen and her people. The Calle de Tutor is precisely the office Argüelles held with her; the Calle de la Princesa honors the infanta Isabel, “la Chata”; Luisa Fernanda is her sister, Duchess of Montpensier; the Rey Francisco is Francisco de Asís, her husband and king consort. Nearby, Martín de los Heros was a minister and friend of Argüelles himself, and Ferraz recalls Valentín Ferraz, an Aragonese military man and mayor of Madrid. They are joined by the liberals of those years: Mendizábal, the man of the confiscation of Church lands; Evaristo San Miguel, who wrote the words of the Anthem of Riego; and the poets Quintana and Meléndez Valdés, major voices of the Enlightenment. The neighborhood ended up on the front line during the Civil War, the boundary between the city and the University City, and many of its houses date from afterward, raised anew in brick and granite. One of its streets holds a transplant: the Calle del Buen Suceso brought here the devotion of that church and hospital demolished at the Puerta del Sol. The image was carried up from the center, lost its lifelong corner, and stayed to live on the slope.