Plaza de las Californias
Revives the neighborhood’s popular nickname for Las Adelfas, taken from the vanished Calle California, which named a district of low houses and industry beside the railway tracks.
Before it was called Las Adelfas, this corner of Retiro was Las Californias to the people who lived there. The nickname came from Calle California, a street now gone that named a district of low houses from the late 19th century, mixed with industrial sheds, between the Pacífico and Vallecas bridges, on the edge of the railway tracks. Why it was called California was never documented.
In 2018 the district council revived the popular name for the Plaza de las Californias, between Calle de Barrilero, Calle de Seco and Calle de Luis Peidró. Nearby survives a restored corrala, with its narrow façade and shared courtyard, a reminder of how life went here when Madrid’s Californias lay on the wrong side of the tracks.