Calle de García Molinas

This street sits on the site where, for half a century, the air smelled of fresh fish from Galicia and Cantabria. Here, since 1875, stood the Mostenses market, an iron-and-glass hall. The demolition of 1925 swept it all away to open the final stretch of the Gran Vía, between Callao and plaza de España. That market put up a fight to the last day: much of the delay in the works came from how hard it was to tear down. Meanwhile, the street waited for a name under a provisional office label, calle E. The final christening came in December 1944, a year after the honoured man’s death. Francisco García Molinas was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and came to Madrid when Spain lost the colony. A physician and liberal politician, he was deputy mayor, led campaigns against typhus and chaired the Madrid Charity Association. Today the street fits within a single block, running past the old Cine Gran Vía and the Teatro Compac.