Calle de Casarrubuelos

The name comes from Casarrubuelos, a town south of the Madrid region and the smallest in the whole community. The place name is a diminutive of neighboring Casarrubios: “little Casarrubios,” built on the roots for house and the fair or reddish color of the ground. Calle de Casarrubuelos thus repeats the criterion that gave character to the Arapiles district, where several streets take their names from towns around Madrid. It is one of the three arcaded streets left in the center, alongside Gerona and Ciudad Rodrigo. Unlike those, it goes almost unnoticed between Fernando el Católico and Fernández de los Ríos, and is often cited as one of the least traveled in the city. It was built around 1950 with the look of warehouses, meant to serve the nearby Vallehermoso market. In 1967 a newspaper column, amused by its seclusion, called it the little lovers' lane for the trysts its arcades sheltered.