Calle de Méjico
The street took the name of Mexico in the overhaul of the Guindalera gazetteer approved around 1887, when it replaced the popular name Doña Mencía. The change was part of a collective revision that renamed most of the streets of the eastern outskirts, several of them with geographical references.
Around 1860 the Guindalera began to fill up. Several owners cut up their land east of the Ensanche and handed plots to bricklayers to build homes. The streets sprang up in a grid, parallel to the Paseo de Ronda —today Francisco Silvela—, and people named them as they pleased, with names pointing to nothing in particular.
In 1887 municipal order arrived and swept away that improvised naming. The one called Doña Mencía woke up turned into Méjico, spelled with the j then used for the country and its capital. Why that name was chosen no one knows: it appears in no council agreement nor in the street guides of the period.
Today Méjico runs about 463 metres. At number 53, since 1943, a sports centre has thrived, born of the drive of two brothers named Lazcano Escolá, one a priest and one a doctor who had earlier worn the Real Madrid shirt.
Its names
- Calle Doña Mencíaanterior a 1887
Sources (6)
- La Guindalera. Parque de las Avenidas (Roldán Calzado, 2013) — extracto editorial
- Luz verde al plan especial para blindar el jardín de La Guindalera — Gacetín Madrid, 23-07-2024
- Plan Especial en la calle Méjico, 53 — Ayuntamiento de Madrid
- Fundación Apóstol Santiago — Historia institucional
- Jaime Lazcano — Wikipedia
- Callejero de Madrid — Calle de Méjico