Calle de Martín Machio

Behind this name there is no notable or general, but a neighbour. Martín Machío recalls one of the first settlers of the old Colonia Ibarrondo, the cluster of humble houses that grew in this corner of Prosperidad from the 1930s onward. The land had been market garden. Owners by the names of Ibarrondo and Lezcano parcelled out the ground and sold it cheap, and those who bought the plots built their own homes. With the house they won a small privilege: to name the street that passed their door. So alongside Martín Machío came streets such as Doña Carlota and Francisco Vivancos, all bearing a neighbour’s name. Exactly who this Martín Machío was has left no documented record; his trace is the street itself. The estate of low houses vanished in the late 1970s, replaced by blocks.