Calle de Juan Pradillo

The name points to a person, Juan Pradillo, but no reliable record survives of who he was or why a street in Bellas Vistas carries his surname. Any biography assigned to him would be guesswork. What is known is the ground it stands on. Bellas Vistas grew up north of Madrid from the camps set up after the African War of 1860, when merchants settled around the returning troops and the working-class core of Tetuán de las Victorias was born. It was land of Chamartín de la Rosa, a fringe of low houses and lots sold piecemeal, where many streets took the name of the landowner or of some notable neighbor, with no record to explain it. The district was annexed to Madrid in 1948, and with the annexation part of the street map had to be redone to avoid repeated names. The calle de Juan Pradillo survived, short and quiet, among the working-class blocks of Tetuán, with a name whose original owner remains faceless.