Calle de Pedro Heredia

The street was born within the Quinta del Espíritu Santo, a colony of second homes that Pascual Madoz built around the mid-nineteenth century beside the Abroñigal stream. The venture never turned a profit, but the streets it had laid out remained. Until 1903 this one was called Calle de Valencia, and a municipal agreement of 30 December that year gave it the name it carries today. Pedro de Heredia was a Madrilenian of gentry stock. He crossed to the New World fleeing a brawl in Madrid that had cost him his nose, later rebuilt with tissue from his own arm. In 1533 he founded Cartagena de Indias and from there pushed into present-day Colombia. He died in 1554 when his ship went down off the coast of Cádiz, as he returned to Spain to answer to the courts. Pedro de Répide noted a small and charming detail: the Bécquer brothers lived here when the street was still called de Valencia.