Calle San Félix

Barely a hundred and twenty meters beside Paseo de la Chopera suffice for this slight Arganzuela street. It bears the name of Saint Felix, and there the certainty ends: no record survives of why it was dedicated or which of the many saints named Felix it honors. The directory places it between San Daniel and San Evaristo, in a cluster of streets named after saints as the neighborhood grew toward the Manzanares, when this land was orchards and tree-lined walks more than city. Felix comes from the Latin felix, “happy, fortunate,” and the calendar spreads it across several figures: a Felix of Nola venerated as a confessor, a deacon Felix martyred in Roman Hispalis, a martyr Felix buried beside the Via Portuensis in Rome. Which of them weighed on whoever named the street remains a mystery. The street keeps the name and has lost the reason that chose it, among the vermouth bars that liven the area today.