Calle del Gasómetro
It recalls the old Madrid Gas Works, popularly known as El Gasómetro for its gas tanks, which rose beside this street from the mid-nineteenth century.
The name comes from a factory that lit Madrid for over a century. In 1848 the City Council granted some land on the outskirts of the Puerta de Toledo to the Madrid Society for Gas Lighting. There rose the Madrid Gas Works, which occupied the block between the Ronda de Toledo, the paseos de las Acacias and de los Olmos and this very calle del Gasómetro.
The grounds held furnaces, coal stores, offices and even housing for the workers. Above all stood the great cylindrical tanks where the gas was stored, the gasometers, so visible that people ended up calling the whole factory “the Gasometer.” From that popular nickname the street took its name.
The advance of electricity slowly cornered the gas until, in 1967, the factory moved to Manoteras and the old grounds were demolished. Where the furnaces once burned there are now homes, streets and a park. Of all that industry, one brick chimney survives, still rising among the trees.