Calle Caridad
The street took its name from the Constructora Benéfica, a philanthropic society founded in Madrid on 28 April 1875 to build hygienic, affordable housing for working families. The organization was popularly known as “La Caridad” (Charity) for the charitable nature of its mission, and the name stuck to the street where it carried out its first development in 1883. There it built 38 houses for 58 families in the Pacífico neighborhood. Two of those original homes still survive.
Calle de la Caridad, in the Pacífico neighborhood, was not born as a public street. It began as a private one, opened in 1883 by the Constructora Benéfica, a society founded in 1875 to build decent housing for working families. The idea had come from Concepción Arenal.
With money from two striking bequests —30,000 pesetas from an Austrian countess and 7,425 from the writer Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda— the society built its first development between calle Pacífico and calle Granada: 38 houses for 58 families, in three-story buildings. The singular part was its mechanics: families gained ownership by paying monthly installments, far from the charity handout the name might suggest.
The organization survives today as Fundación de Caridad La Constructora Benéfica. Of that first development, two homes still stand.
Sources (5)
- Casas económicas para obreros en la calle de la Caridad (Memoria de Madrid / Blog)
- La Constructora Benéfica en Madrid — Urban Cidade
- Recorrido por el barrio de Pacífico — Miradas de Madrid
- La Ilustración Española y Americana, 22 de marzo de 1883 — Grabado Juan Comba (Alamy)
- Constructora Benéfica — Madripedia