Calle del General Mitre

Before the pickaxes opened the third stretch of the Gran Vía, there was no street here. Today it runs between the Gran Vía and plaza de los Mostenses, extending calle del Doctor Carracido on the far side of the avenue. The city council named it in 1921, the centenary of the birth of Bartolomé Mitre, Argentine soldier, statesman, journalist, and historian. Governor of Buenos Aires and president of the Republic between 1862 and 1868, during his term he finally secured Spain’s recognition of Argentine independence in 1863. He founded the newspaper La Nación in 1870 and in old age translated the Divine Comedy into verse. Despite its physical modesty, the street carried cultural weight. At number 5, between 1933 and 1936, ran the offices of Cruz y Raya, edited by José Bergamín and Eugenio Imaz; its gatherings drew García Lorca, Alberti, Dámaso Alonso, Jorge Guillén, and Miguel Hernández.