Calle de Vizcaya

When the city council opened streets in the Delicias district, around 1880, many existed only on the paper of the urban plan. To name them, a convenient repertoire was drawn on: the Spanish provinces. So in this corner of Arganzuela were born a calle de Murcia or this calle de Vizcaya, laid out before the houses arrived. Vizcaya is the northern province whose capital is Bilbao, today officially written Bizkaia in Basque. Its etymology is still debated: one hypothesis links it to Basque words tied to the idea of height or mountain. The choice honored no particular event of that land; it lent an orderly air to a neighborhood growing fast on the city’s southern edge, beside the railway. In 1880 the Delicias station opened nearby, and the area passed from an 18th-century tree-lined promenade to an industrial landscape.