Calle de San Andrés

Calle de San Andrés climbs south to north between Calle del Espíritu Santo and Calle de Carranza, right in the Universidad district. In the 17th century it ended at the Portillo de Maravillas, one of the gates of Philip IV’s wall, with only fields and poplar groves beyond. Teixeira’s 1656 map draws it unnamed; Espinosa’s, in 1769, already labels it San Andrés. Everything changed in the 1880s, when new blocks laid out over the plots of the old Monteleón Palace —⁠the barracks of the Second of May⁠— extended the street northward. In 1886 the Teatro Maravillas opened there, demolished in 2002. At number 18 lived the family of Manuela Malasaña. A statement from 1815 tells that the young woman was returning from the embroidery workshop when French soldiers arrested her and executed her on 3 May 1808 for carrying sewing scissors. A plaque recalls it. The neighbourhood of craftsmen —⁠the “chisperos”⁠— gave the street much of its character.