Calle de Stuyck

The surname on this short street in Nueva España reached Madrid from Antwerp in the 18th century, brought by Livinio Stuyck, nephew of the Flemish weavers Philip V had summoned to found the Royal Tapestry Factory. With him begins a line that ran the workshop for seven generations, the looms passing from father to son. The first Livinio died young and left charge to his widow, Nieves Álvarez, who kept the factory going and ranks among the first women to head a business in the Spain of her day. The family also cultivated a curious naming habit: every Livinio named his firstborn Gabino, and every Gabino, Livinio. The family line closed in 1996, when the workshop, on the brink of bankruptcy, passed to a foundation. Its tapestries dressed royal palaces, and Chamartín’s street map kept the surname on this stretch of barely fifty meters.