Imperial

Before the houses, this was the market-garden bank of the Manzanares: orchards, threshing floors, and roads that led down to the river south of Madrid. Calle de Juan Duque recalls the owner of one of those gardens, over which the street was opened. When the 18th century laid out its tree-lined promenades here, water ruled everything: Paseo de los Pontones took its name from the plank bridges on boats that crossed the river, and the Puente de San Isidro, from the old ferry crossing that led to the patron saint’s hermitage on the far bank. Calle de Manzanares runs close along the river that girds the neighborhood, whose name comes from manzanar, an apple orchard. Then came the factories and the workers, and the south of Madrid filled with housing. Much of the street map went looking for small towns of Castile, nearly all from the Segovia countryside: Etreros, Jemenuño, Muñopedro —⁠which recalls Muño, son of Pedro, its medieval resettler⁠—⁠, Sangarcía and Cobos de Segovia. There are also learned saints, all men of books: San Isidoro de Sevilla, the Visigothic archbishop who wrote the Etymologies; San Epifanio, bishop and 4th-century scholar; and, outside the saints, the Swede Linneo, who fixed the way of naming each living thing with two Latin words. Nearby runs Calle de Ruy González de Clavijo, the Madrilenian who traveled as far as Samarkand as ambassador to Tamerlane and told of the journey. At the western end, over the grounds of Atlético’s old stadium, the neighborhood filled with theater people. Plaza del Teatro was opened right there, dedicated to the dramatic arts at the proposal of three town chroniclers; beside it, Calle de Nati Mistral, actress and singer; Francisco Nieva, playwright and stage designer; and Plaza de Francisco Morano, an actor who ran his own company. Where for half a century a football ground roared beside the river, the signs now name only those who stepped onto a stage.