Calle de Honduras

The name crosses the Atlantic to Central America: it evokes the Republic of Honduras, the country of mountains and the Caribbean that, by tradition, took its name from the deep waters Columbus found off its coasts in 1502. The street is not alone in its tribute. This whole part of Chamartín, split between Nueva España and neighbouring Hispanoamérica, was laid out in the mid-20th century as a small atlas of the Americas: a few steps away run Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Plaza de la República Dominicana, with the axis of the Avenida de América presiding above. Anyone walking these blocks hops from country to country without leaving the district. Honduras remained a quiet, residential stretch, in a neighbourhood that barely existed when Chamartín de la Rosa was still a town of its own. The annexation to Madrid in 1948 tidied up these plots, and building work filled them with blocks and gardens over the following decades.