Valdeacederas

Before the houses, this was a hollow of vegetable gardens and farmland down which streams ran southward. It is recalled by la Alfalfa, la Veza and las Almortas —⁠the alfalfa mown for the livestock, the vetch for fodder, the grass pea whose flour fed half of Spain until it was banned as toxic⁠— and also el Arroyo, la Ladera and the Camino del Chorrillo, after the trickle of water that the park later covered. When the valley filled with houses, humble people came: the settlement was arranged around Pinos Alta and Pinos Baja, the latter heir to the old Barriada de los Pinos, a shantytown core of the old Chamartín de la Rosa. Because the neighborhood was built up out of small plots, many streets bear the name of whoever gave up the land: Francisca Calonge, Francisca Conde, Isabel Serrano, Esperanza Sánchez Carrascosa —⁠of the Carrascosa family, owner of much of the valley⁠— or Dolores Bejarano and Andrea Puech, remembered as the first residents of their streets. Of almost all of them nothing has remained but the name on the plaque. Beside them, the legacy of Tetuán: Ceuta, the Sierra Bullones that separates the city from Morocco, and the Voluntarios Catalanes who fought in the African War of 1859, the campaign that took Tetuán and gave the whole district its name. Franco’s regime left its mark by erasing the old: the calle de Valdeacederas came to be called Capitán Blanco Argibay, after a rebel officer from Chamartín killed at the Ebro. Higher up, someone wanted to turn the valley of sorrels into a garden of paper: whole pages of the street plan are flowers and plants. The Salvia (sage), the Azucenas (lilies), the Gardenias, the Loto (lotus), the Crisantemo (chrysanthemum) —⁠“golden flower” in Greek⁠—⁠, the Acónito (aconite) of the blue hood, the most poisonous in Europe, and the Miosotis or forget-me-not, whose Greek name means “mouse’s ear.” Where the bitter sorrel of the field was once eaten, today the corners announce gardenias that have never grown here.