Calle Melilla

The name travels to the North African coast, to Melilla, the Spanish city looking out on the Mediterranean opposite Cape Three Forks. Before it was Spanish it was Phoenician: around the eighth century BC the Phoenicians raised a settlement there called Rusadir, “mighty cape,” for the mass of land that juts into the sea. From that ancient place name the present one eventually emerged. In 1497, with the city half in ruins and nearly empty, an expedition led by Pedro de Estopiñán, backed by Ferdinand and Isabella, took the stronghold. The land border was fixed in 1862, after the War of Africa, measured by the range of shots from a cannon nicknamed “El Caminante”: two white-painted balls marked the limits, and from that came the city’s outline. The street is a brief stretch of the Las Acacias neighborhood, where several streets gather the names of towns and territories of former Spanish North Africa.