Calle de Lérida

Before it was called Lérida, this street in Cuatro Caminos was named Lanza de Cristo. Madrid’s city council renamed it on 2 March 1887 in honor of the Catalan city, called Lleida in its own language. The place name is ancient. The Romans knew it as Ilerda, and earlier it was the main settlement of the Ilergetes, an Iberian people who ruled the plain of the Segre. The name fits the layout of the district: Cuatro Caminos grew in the late nineteenth century by signing its streets with Spanish cities and provinces, and Teruel and Pensamiento flank it. Lérida starts almost at a dead end. The houses at number 19 of Calle de Teruel close off one of its ends: old exposed-brick buildings with traditional Madrid galleries. Demolishing them would be the only way to open the passage, which is why the street begins against that wall.