Calle de la Salud

Sol

The name comes from the barrio de la Salud, a popular name earned by the settlement beyond the walls whose residents survived an outbreak of bubonic plague during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs. The street took that name as the district consolidated, replacing Calle Alta del Carmen, which distinguished it from Calle del Carmen proper.

Barely two hundred metres separate Calle del Carmen from the Gran Vía, in the Sol quarter. Along the way, this street connects with those of la Abada, las Tres Cruces and the Plaza del Carmen. In the fifteenth century all of this was outskirts, beyond the walls of Madrid. It is said its residents dodged the plague because they had gardens, livestock and one of the city’s first springs of drinking water, reputed to heal. The place earned the nickname “the health quarter”, and that name stuck to the street. Whoever walks toward the Gran Vía meets a surprise: the Renaissance doorway of the old church of San Luis Obispo, which stood on Calle Montera and was destroyed in 1936. Its door was mounted in 1950 on the façade of the parish of Nuestra Señora del Carmen y San Luis Obispo.

Its names

  • Calle Alta del Carmendocumentada en el plano de Texeira, 1656
  • Calle de la Saludanterior al nomenclator municipal del 19th century; nombre actual confirmado en fuentes del 19th y en Gea Ortigas (2012)
Sources (7)

Crossings