Calle de Tablada

For decades this street marked the start of the old settlement of Tetuán de las Victorias, to the left of Bravo Murillo, where the low houses raised by the veterans of the War of Africa began. Back then it was not called Tablada but Prim, in honour of the general who distinguished himself at the head of his troops in the Moroccan campaign of 1859. The change came when Tetuán was annexed to Madrid. The capital already had its own streets dedicated to Prim, O’Donnell and Serrano, so dozens of repeated streets had to be renamed. No reliable record survives of which particular Tablada the sign points to: in Spanish the word means a flat piece of ground, or the place near a slaughterhouse where livestock was gathered. The street does hold, however, a very concrete story. At number 25, rehearsal spaces opened in 1980 through which much of the Movida madrileña passed: Leño, Los Secretos and Alaska y los Pegamoides rehearsed there, and in one of the rooms the spray-painted signature of the graffiti artist Muelle is still preserved.