Calle del Álamo

Conde Duque·Universidad

The street owes its name to a poplar grove that once stood in the gardens of don García de Barrionuevo de Peralta, owner of this land in the 16th century. Antonio Capmany, the oldest source, mentions the grove beside a little fountain nicknamed “del Piojo” where the poor waited for the lord’s alms. A later owner felled the poplars; only one was left standing, and that solitary tree gathered the naming of the whole street and the small Álamo district around it.

Calle del Álamo runs down from plaza de los Mostenses to calle de los Reyes, where it changes its skin and continues as calle de Amaniel, in the Universidad quarter. Beneath the name lies an old estate: the domain of García de Barrionuevo de Peralta, whose lands joined orchards, gardens and trees in what would become the Maravillas quarter. It is told that a poplar really stood here, and beside it a fountain with a name as unsolemn as the “del Piojo” fountain. The street lived pressed against the convent of San Norberto, founded in 1611 by the Premonstratensians, from whom the nickname “los Mostenses” comes. Madrileños called that whole tangle of alleys the Álamo district. Then came the pickaxe. The opening of the Gran Vía, in the first third of the 20th century, undid that tight fabric. Calle del Álamo withstood the demolition, though it came out cornered, glancing sideways at the great avenue that had left it aside.

Its names

  • Sin denominación documentada / entorno de huertas BarrionuevoSiglo 16th
  • Calle del Álamo (nombre de barrio y de calle)Siglo 17th – documentado en el entorno del plano de Texeira (1656)
  • Calle del Espíritu Santo (nombre compartido con Amaniel)Siglo 18th – fecha exacta no consta
  • Calle del Álamo (nombre fijado oficialmente)Siglo 19th – anterior a 1843
Sources (8)

Crossings