Calle de las Moquetas
It bears the name of the moqueta, a short-pile wool fabric once woven into rugs and tapestries, though why it was applied to this street is unknown.
The name points to an everyday yet ancient object. Before covering office floors, moqueta was a stout wool cloth, short-piled and tight over a hemp warp, used in rugs and hangings. The word came from the French moquette, related to the Arabic mujáyyar, the cloth of goat hair; for centuries it named a velvety tapestry before it named the synthetic covering we associate with it today.
Why this stretch of Valdeacederas ended up called Calle de las Moquetas is not reliably documented. The street belongs to the humble fabric that grew north of Madrid in the late nineteenth century, when Tetuán de las Victorias was still a suburb of low houses and modest trades. Small, domestic names live side by side here, like Calle del Trébol, giving the district the air of a popular inventory rather than a pantheon of worthies.
The name remains a loose clue: a short street bearing that of an old fabric, still waiting for someone to find the loom that explains it.