Calle Dolores Romero
Dolores Romero y Arano (Terriente, Teruel, 1852/1853 - Madrid, 15 December 1936) was the philanthropist who financed the Hospital de Jornaleros de San Francisco de Paula (Maudes Hospital), designed by Antonio Palacios and Joaquín Otamendi and opened in 1916. The Madrid City Council dedicated the street to her in 1920, in the Fuente del Berro neighborhood.
Before her name reached the street map, Dolores Romero y Arano signed one of the most generous acts of charity in the Madrid of her day. Born in Terriente, in the Sierra de Albarracín, in 1852, she married Francisco Curiel, a Basque businessman who co-founded the Bank of Spain. The couple had no children, and when widowed she poured her fortune into charity.
Her flagship Madrid project was the Hospital de Jornaleros de San Francisco de Paula. She commissioned it from Antonio Palacios and Joaquín Otamendi in 1906, with construction from 1908 to 1916. The building traced a cross-shaped plan over an octagonal courtyard and treated day laborers for free. It opened in 1916 with some 150 beds. Her generosity also reached her homeland: in Teruel she built a boarding school for a hundred orphans and donated land to enlarge a hospital.
In 1920 the City Council named the calle de Dolores Romero after her, skirting the old edge of the Iturbe 2 development.
Sources (6)
- Dolores Romero Arano — Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre
- Hospital de Maudes — Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre
- Persona: Romero Arano, Dolores (1852/1853-1936) — PARES, Ministerio de Cultura
- Palacio de Maudes — Comunidad de Madrid
- Hospital de Maudes — COAM, ficha del edificio
- Colonias históricas. Fuente del Berro (Colonia Iturbe 2) — Arte en Madrid