Calle Rafael Herrero

Who Rafael Herrero was is now unknown. The name appears in the Bellas Vistas street map, but no reliable record survives of whom it honors or why this short street, barely seventy meters long, was dedicated to him. No biography remains of its namesake, only the sign. The silence suits the neighborhood’s history. Bellas Vistas grew at the turn of the twentieth century as one of the peripheral cores of Tetuán, built up by day laborers and families who could not afford central Madrid. When those lands were parceled out, many streets took the names of owners, developers or neighbors of the moment, people of no public standing whose memory faded as soon as the generation changed. Rafael Herrero once carried enough weight for his surname to be etched onto a corner of old Tetuán de las Victorias. The rest has been lost.