Calle de la Flor Baja

Calle de la Flor Baja begins beside Calle de Isabel la Católica and ends at Leganitos, a few steps from Plaza de España. For centuries it formed a single axis with Calle de la Flor Alta; the Gran Vía works, between 1910 and 1932, broke that unity and swallowed the block that joined the two streets. The name comes from a garden. In the sixteenth century, García de Barrionuevo de Peralta kept a country house here with gardens terraced on two levels: the upper terrace looked toward Flor Alta, the lower toward Flor Baja. When the Premonstratensian Fathers took over part of the plot in 1611, the gardens vanished, but the two streets kept the floral memory of the lost orchard. Its most famous building was the Teatro El Recreo, at number 1, where in 1867 the hourly shows costing one real premiered, which scholars point to as the seed of the “género chico.” At number 7 survives a plaque recalling the actresses María Fernanda Ladrón de Guevara and her daughter Amparo Rivelles, major names of twentieth-century Spanish theatre and film.