Chueca

Officially it is Justicia, after the Palace of Justice that occupies the convent of the Salesas Reales —⁠hence it is also called Las Salesas⁠—⁠. But the name that stuck is that of the square of Federico Chueca, the zarzuela musician. Amid the solemnity of the courts, streets grew up bearing the names of a queen and infantas, of musicians and apothecaries. Barbieri and Chueca set their zarzuela here; the jurists, their air of the robe; and the neighborhood kept both faces for a century. Since the eighties another flag has flown. Today life is lived on Libertad —⁠the street and the word⁠—⁠, one passes from the King to the Queen without asking permission, and toasts are raised in the square of Pedro Zerolo. Justice stayed in the courts; pride went out onto the sidewalk.