Calle de Tetuán

Sol

The name commemorates the taking of Tétouan on 6 February 1860, during the Spanish-Moroccan war of 1859–1860, when Spanish troops under General O’Donnell occupied the North African city. The street received the name after the remodelling of the Puerta del Sol begun in 1856, which erased the three earlier streets along its course.

A street born from the merging of three medieval alleys. One was Calle de Peregrinos (Pilgrims‘ Street), after a sixteenth-century travellers’ hospital. Another, Calle de la Zarza, after a drovers' path where Peter I is said to have had eleven men executed. The third, Calle de los Negros, owed its name to the household slaves of the president of the Council of the Indies. The change came from traffic congestion. The Puerta del Sol could not cope: a count in 1857 tallied there, in a single day, 3,950 carriages and 1,414 pack animals. To relieve that point this new street was opened, linking Plaza del Carmen with Calle del Maestro Victoria. From the first day it was destined for commerce and leisure. In 1899 the Frontón Central opened, becoming in 1922 the first multi-screen cinema in Spain. A few steps away still stands Casa Labra, a tavern opened in 1860 where the PSOE was founded in 1879. Pedestrianized in the late twentieth century, it now gathers high-street shops alongside one of the entrances to the Corte Inglés of Sol.

Its names

  • Calle de Peregrinos16th century-1856
  • Calle de la Zarzaanterior a 1856
  • Calle de los Negrosanterior a 1856
  • Calle de Tetuán1860-actualidad
Sources (8)

Crossings