Calle de Ariel

Ariel is a spirit of the air. So Shakespeare imagined him in The Tempest, where he serves the magician Prospero after being freed from the trunk in which the witch Sycorax had imprisoned him for twelve years. Light, mischievous, able to raise storms and turn invisible, Ariel embodies the airy against the heavy earth of Caliban. The name comes from the Hebrew Ariʾel, “lion of God”, and for its esoteric aura it ended up classed among the mythological names of the street map. Why this stretch of Legazpi took the name of Ariel in particular is not documented. The street occupies a corner of southeastern Arganzuela where the names are split between two worlds: on one side the so-called Metals neighbourhood, with streets like Bronce and Hierro; on the other, a handful of names drawn from myth, among them the neighbouring calle de Eros. Anyone walking calle de Ariel today will find recent housing blocks and parks that have transformed what was for decades industrial land beside the Manzanares.