Calle de Torres

The name of this street is undocumented. Torres is one of the most common surnames in Spanish, and here it appears bare, with no given name or trade to identify the person. No municipal record or neighbourhood chronicle explains why. What is known is the ground it runs on. Torres crosses Valdeacederas, in the heart of the old Tetuán de las Victorias, the settlement that sprang up north of Madrid after 1860, when the troops returning from the African campaign gave these empty lots their name. What began as a camp of shacks and picnic huts beside the road to France⁠—⁠today Bravo Murillo⁠—⁠filled with narrow streets named after stray surnames, fixed by local usage rather than by any agreement. The name Valdeacederas, “valley of the sorrels,” recalls the vegetable plots where that sour herb grew before brick covered everything. Among them lay Torres, a short street whose namesake remains unknown.