Calle de Génova

The name links to the navigator. Genoa, a port city in northwestern Italy, is the place tradition holds to be the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, and to that memory the city council dedicated this street on 1 October 1886. The street ends at the plaza de Colón, so the discoverer and his native land ended up paired on the map. Before that Italian christening the street was called Ronda de Recoletos from 1859, when the outer edge of the town ran through here, among convents, orchards, and small palaces. Today Génova separates Justicia from Almagro, with the Gamazo palace and the Torres de Colón, topped by that green crown Madrileños nicknamed “the plug.”