Calle de Alvarado

The surname Alvarado names one of the streets that squared off Bellas Vistas when the Tetuán outskirts began to be built up beyond the core of Madrid, at the turn of the twentieth century. The name recalls the conquistador Pedro de Alvarado, a captain who went with Hernán Cortés in the taking of Tenochtitlan. His fair hair and his violent temper in combat led the natives to link him with Tonatiuh, the Mexica sun god: “the Sun”. That same dedication carried on underground when metro line 1 reached the neighbourhood and opened a station here that borrowed the street’s name. Whoever looks for a doorway on Alvarado today walks over a Castilian surname added to the mosaic of young Tetuán, while overhead the metro entrance that shares its name still works.