Calle de Londres
The street takes its name from London, capital of the United Kingdom, since 15 September 1905. Before that it was called Alberto Aguilera —a liberal politician, minister of the Interior in 1894 and mayor of Madrid between 1901 and 1910— from its opening on 1 January 1898.
This street was born within one of the most unusual property ventures of late-19th-century Madrid: the Madrid Moderno colony. In 1890 the developer Manuel Santos Pineda and the architect Julián Marín built, on land east of the Ensanche, a set of two-storey villas with front gardens and turrets on the corners. Répide wrote that the district sold its houses at trifling prices, within reach of a middle class that could never have lived in the Ensanche de Salamanca.
The stretch between Cartagena and Julio Camba was first named on 1 January 1898, and not after London. It was called Alberto Aguilera, in honour of the jurist and liberal minister who was mayor of Madrid several times between 1901 and 1910.
But the tribute did not last: a street more worthy of his fame was later found for the politician, today’s calle de Alberto Aguilera. Freed of the tribute, this street finally got its lasting name on 15 September 1905, when the City Council christened it calle de Londres. In the same colony, calle de Roma repeats the gesture of looking towards the capitals of Europe.
Its names
- Calle de Alberto Aguilera1898-1905