Calle de María Pedraza

The name comes from the woman who owned the land. When Bellas Vistas ceased to be open country north of Madrid and began filling with blocks, several of its streets took the names of the women who owned the plots they were to run through. María Pedraza was one of them: the owner of the land this street crossed when it was traced. No record of her life remains. No dates, no trade, no story beyond that of her surname fixed to a street. The district was born in the heat of the War of Africa. In 1860, the troops returning victorious camped in the Dehesa de Amaniel awaiting a triumphal entry into the capital, and around that camp grew the cluster of houses that over the years would become Tetuán de las Victorias. Bellas Vistas rose later, plot by plot, on former farmland. María Pedraza belongs to that generation of streets named after the owners of the country that saw them born.