Calle Tercera
A short street that keeps the order number with which it was labeled when the estates of the area were laid out, never replaced by a proper name.
The name recalls no person and no place: it is an order number. When the streets of the estates that grew in this part of Chamartín were opened, on the former land of Chamartín de la Rosa, some maps identified them with consecutive ordinals. Calle Tercera was the third in the layout, and near it stood Calle Primera, Calle Segunda and Calle Cuarta. Names like these were usually understood as provisional, awaiting a dedication; in this case, several remained.
Why the replacement never came is not reliably documented. The numbered ones stayed in place while the surroundings turned from vegetable gardens and small rural settlements into residential blocks over the twentieth century.
Calle Tercera is today a very short street, ordered by arithmetic and not by memory. Anyone who looks on the plaque for who is remembered will find no one: the order number became the name.