Calle del Litio

The name celebrates a chemical element: lithium, the lightest metal there is and the least dense solid in the periodic table, so light it would float on water if it did not react with it at once. Its name comes from the Greek lithos, “stone,” because the chemist who identified it in 1817 found it locked inside a mineral. The street belongs to the southeastern corner of Legazpi known as the “Metals district.” When the expansion plan carved up Madrid from 1860 on, this strip lay pressed against the railway lines and was set aside for factories and workshops. The street map took up that industrial calling: nearby run la calle del Plomo, la calle del Zinc, la calle del Hierro, la calle del Cromo and la calle del Rodio. There is a wink of chance in the neighborhood. Lithium, which back then was little more than a laboratory curiosity, is today the heart of the batteries that drive phones and electric cars, the so-called “white gold.”