Calle de Mataelpino

In the Prosperidad district the names of villages from the Madrid sierra abound, and Mataelpino brings one of the smallest into the city: a hamlet at about 1,120 metres, reclining on the southern slope of the Guadarrama at the foot of La Maliciosa. The place name sounds like a phrase — “mata el pino,” kill the pine — but it is usually read as an old Matadelpino that lost its d between vowels: a “mata de pino,” a stand of pines beside the first houses. Another reading recalls an earlier Mataelespino, where the prestige of the pine would have ended up erasing the hawthorn from the name. The odd thing is that no pines are left in the village: oaks, holm oaks, ash and juniper grow there, with no trace of the tree that named it. The street is inward and quiet, and ends at a small plaza with a children’s playground.