Calle Domingo Pérez del Val

The name points to a person —⁠a first name followed by two surnames, the formula Madrid tends to use for those it wants to remember⁠— but the identity of this Domingo Pérez del Val is undocumented. Who he was, what he did, or why he earned a street in La Chopera are questions the registry leaves unanswered. Calle Domingo Pérez del Val is a short stretch, barely ninety meters, in the La Chopera neighborhood. The neighborhood’s name recalls the poplars planted beside the Manzanares that gave character to this southern sector of Madrid before its urban development. La Chopera was for decades the territory of the railway and small industry, with the municipal slaughterhouse and the Delicias station a step away. In that fabric of modest streets, Domingo Pérez del Val’s goes almost unnoticed: a full name engraved on a plaque, waiting for someone to recall whom it belonged to.