Calle Vicálvaro
The street is named after Vicálvaro, an independent town documented from 1352 until its annexation by Madrid in 1950 (effective 1951). The place name has no settled etymology: the main theories derive it from the Latin VICUS ALVAR (“Álvar’s estate”), VICUS ALBUS (“white place”, after the gypsum quarries), or medieval personal names.
Calle de Vicálvaro, in the Fuente del Berro neighbourhood, carries the name of a town that for centuries lived on its own account outside Madrid. The eastern Ensanche street plan chose to remember it alongside other streets named after outlying settlements.
The name first appears in a document of 1352, now in the Vatican Archive, concerning the collection of church tithes. The old municipal district was far larger than today’s street: it reached lands that now belong to Moratalaz, Ventas and La Elipa. And on 28 June 1854, generals O’Donnell and Dulce rose there against the moderate government, in the uprising history named La Vicalvarada.
The old town’s mark survives in the Ronda de Vicálvaro, the stretch of Avenida de Menéndez Pelayo between Calle O’Donnell and Plaza del Niño Jesús. It follows the line of the road that once linked the town to the Puerta de Alcalá, the way people walked to Vicálvaro.
Sources (8)
- Vicálvaro — Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre
- El nombre de Vicálvaro — vicalvaro.net
- Primeras noticias — vicalvaro.net
- Posible origen de Vicálvaro — todovicalvaro.es
- 70 años de la anexión a Madrid — todovicalvaro.es
- Un camino que unía Vicálvaro con Madrid en el siglo XVII — espormadrid.es
- Revolución española de 1854 — Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre
- Calle de Vicálvaro — Callejero.net