Calle de los Mancebos

The street climbs from the Costanilla de San Andrés to calle de la Morería with a short, angular course, and also gives its name to Calle Angosta de los Mancebos, the only street in Madrid that keeps the adjective “angosta” (narrow) in its sign. The legend behind the name unfolds in Palencia in 1217. The boy king Henry I died when a roof tile struck his head as he played; two youths playing with him were brought to Madrid, locked in the tower of the Lasso de Castilla palace and beheaded. The ceramic sign from the 1990s depicts it with two chained youths, a tile and a dagger. Historians treat the episode as purely legendary. The photographer Alfonso Sánchez Portela, who signed as “Alfonso”, was born in 1902 at number 2. He would go on to portray Spain’s history with his camera, and his work is now in the Reina Sofía.