Calle de Barcelona

In eighteenth-century maps this street was the calle de los Majaderitos Ancha. The name came from the majadero, the mallet used by the goldbeaters and gold-drawers who worked here; when they left, guitar-makers took over their workshops. The change came with the wrecking ball. After the Convento de la Victoria was demolished in 1836, the local streets had to be rearranged, and Mesonero Romanos proposed renaming the old alleys after Spanish cities. So the wide Majaderitos alley became Barcelona and the narrow one beside it became calle de Cádiz. It runs less than a hundred metres through the Sol district, lined with shops and cafés. A short stretch you cross almost without noticing, keeping in its name the echo of the mallets that once rang out here.