Calle de López Silva
A posthumous tribute to the poet and librettist José López Silva (Madrid, 1861 - Buenos Aires, 1925), a chronicler of everyday life born and raised in the Lavapiés neighbourhood itself. The street was renamed in the 1930s after the man who portrayed the life of its streets like no other.
Barely a hundred metres separate calle de Toledo from calle de Santa Ana, in the heart of Embajadores. For a long time the neighbourhood called it calle de las Velas (Candles Street): tallow candles were sold there for the district’s poor homes, while wax, more costly, was kept for churches and palaces.
On the corner with Toledo stood the Teatro Novedades, opened by Isabella II in 1857, which burned down in September 1928; the renaming came afterwards.
José López Silva, born in the neighbourhood in 1861, drew his characters and popular speech from these streets. His major work was La revoltosa (1897), with music by Chapí, set in a tenement courtyard less than two hundred metres from the old street. He died in Buenos Aires in 1925, and his name returned to the neighbourhood that had given him its voice.
Its names
- Red de las Velas / Calle de las VelasAnterior a 1928 (documentado al menos hasta ese año)
- Calle de López SilvaAños 1930 (fecha exacta del acuerdo municipal no localizada)
Sources (8)
- Wikipedia ES — José López Silva
- Madripedia — Calle de López Silva
- El Mirador de Madrid — Incendio Teatro Novedades (fuente directa del nombre anterior)
- Rutas con Historia — Corrala de Tribulete
- A Toda Zarzuela — José López Silva
- Humor Sapiens — José López Silva
- Callejero OpenAlfa — Calle de López Silva (barrio Embajadores)
- Fotopaseo por Madrid — Calle López Silva (fecha 1930)