Calle Nicolás Arocena

The street registry of Madrid records, in Berruguete, Calle de Nicolás de Arocena, a personal name of which no reliable record remains. Nothing clarifies who this Nicolás de Arocena was or why the sign was dedicated to him. The only thing open to reading is the surname. Arocena, in its Basque form Arotzena, is explained by arotz, “blacksmith” or “carpenter” depending on the area, joined to the suffix -ena, “the house of”: the smith’s house. It is a house surname from northern Navarre that travelled with all the migration from those lands. The neighbourhood around the street has a clearer history. Tetuán was born as Tetuán de las Victorias around 1860, after the African War, in memory of the capture of the Moroccan city of Tetouan. From that northern Madrid outskirt, built up plot by plot, narrow, short layouts like this one survive.