Calle Rodas

Calle de Rodas runs between Embajadores and the Ribera de Curtidores, on the edge of the Rastro. Its course was born outside the wall, following the Toledo road from the late 15th century, when the Slaughterhouse and the leather guilds settled in this outer district. The name comes from a resident with a trade: Simón de Rodas, a skinner and hide-dresser, who owned the land on which the street was opened. He is said to have died at 106 and his funeral to have stopped the neighborhood. The place name plays tricks: on Texeira’s 1656 map the street appears as Bodas, which researchers read as a bad copy of Rodas. In 1950 the Galerías Piquer opened here, with entrances on Rodas and the Ribera, among whose promoters was Concha Piquer.