Calle de la Farmacia

Calle de la Farmacia took its name from a building that still stands on the street, though for at least two centuries it was called calle de San Juan. It runs between Fuencarral and Hortaleza along barely two hundred curving metres. The change came at the hands of the apothecaries. The Royal College of Apothecaries opened a subscription among colleagues across Spain and by 1830 was teaching in a neoclassical building by Pedro de Zengotita Vengoa, its façade curved to follow the gentle bend of the street. In January 1835 the City renamed the street calle de la Farmacia. Today the Royal National Academy of Pharmacy keeps a museum there with a neo-Gothic pharmacy of 1876 brought over piece by piece. Across the way, the Escuelas Pías de San Antón housed, between 1811 and 1813, a boarder named Victor Hugo, whose father was military governor of Madrid. The same building later served as the San Antón prison during the Civil War, from which the 1936 Paracuellos removals departed.