Calle Primera

The name reads on its own: Primera (First), an ordinal with no surname or anniversary to go with it. No record survives of why the street was given that designation. Names like this, purely numerical, tended to appear when a street was opened before it had a definitive name, and the provisional numbering ended up stuck to the map. The surroundings do have a story. The Hispanoamérica neighborhood rose on land of the old town of Chamartín de la Rosa, a terrain of orchards and small outskirts that the capital gradually absorbed. Toward the north, where streets now line up with the names of republics and cities across the Atlantic, there were once open lots and modest hamlets like the one called Cuarenta Fanegas. At street level, Primera runs about two hundred sixty meters, a short street the passerby crosses barely noticing its plaque.