Calle Capitán Salazar Martínez

The street is born on Texeira’s 1656 map with a pious name, calle de San Lorenzo, from the shelter Pedro de Cuenca founded in 1598 for the homeless poor. Among the first taken in were five crippled men, and their daily presence stamped itself on the neighbourhood. Two dragged wounds from Lepanto, two had been maimed building El Escorial, the fifth broke himself on a tower of the Alcázar. Locals began calling it calle de los Cojos (Street of the Lame), and so it appears on Espinosa’s map of 1769. In 1911 came today’s official name, calle del Capitán Salazar Martínez, but it never took hold. The honoured captain, Emilio Salazar Martínez, fell on 27 July 1909 at the Barranco del Lobo near Melilla, in a Rifian ambush that left more than 150 troops dead and leapt into popular song. Even so, well into the 20th century the old nickname “los Cojos” refused to die along these mere 146 metres of short, workaday street in the heart of Embajadores.