Calle Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada

Malasaña·Universidad

The street takes its name from Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada (Granada or Córdoba, 1509 – Mariquita, Colombia, 16 February 1579), a law graduate from Salamanca and lieutenant general of the expedition that set out from Santa Marta on 5 April 1536 and conquered the New Kingdom of Granada. He founded Santafé de Bogotá on 6 August 1538. Before this, the street was named after Hilario Peñasco, co-author with Carlos Cambronero of the book Las calles de Madrid (1889). The renaming dates from 1933.

A short street in the Universidad district, barely 75 meters between the Gran Vía and Calle del Desengaño. It began as a side street of the second stretch of the Gran Vía and was first called Calle de Hilario Peñasco. The city renamed it in 1933, the same year the Madrid-París department store went bankrupt; its eight-story colossus closes the block and today houses a Primark. From its top floor Unión Radio, seed of the SER network, broadcast the proclamation of the Second Republic. Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada (1509–1579) was an unusual conquistador: a lawyer before a soldier. He went up the Magdalena from Santa Marta with some 800 men, of whom barely 175 reached the highlands alive, and on 6 August 1538 he founded Santafé de Bogotá. Years later he set out to find El Dorado with 500 horsemen and returned with 25 Spaniards. He died a leper in Mariquita.

Its names

  • Calle de Hilario Peñascoc. 1917–1933
  • Calle de Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada1933–actualidad
Sources (10)

Crossings