Calle de Carmen Sánchez Carrascosa

Behind this name is a woman of whom we know only one thing: she owned the land. When the street was laid out and named, in 1941, the City Council honoured Carmen Sánchez Carrascosa, owner of the ground the new road crossed. No record survives of her life, her face or her years; the map fixed her for what she had, not for what she did. That gesture was common in the Madrid that grew northward in the mid-20th century. As the outskirts were built up and divided into plots, the names of those who owned the land were engraved on the signs. Carmen’s was not an isolated case: in Tetuán, another street bears the name of Esperanza Sánchez Carrascosa, also owner of the ground it was opened through; in Ciudad Lineal, a third recalls Dolores Sánchez Carrascosa for the same reason. Today Calle de Carmen Sánchez Carrascosa is a short stretch of the Castilla neighbourhood, just over a hundred metres between apartment blocks. The sign keeps the name of the woman who owned the field the asphalt covered.