Gran Vía

Gran Vía began as an urban headache. In 1862 a plan was floated to cut a wide street through the old town to relieve the Puerta del Sol, by then an impassable funnel. It took nearly half a century to happen: on 4 April 1910 Alfonso XIII struck the first blow. Clearing the way meant demolishing some 310 buildings and erasing or trimming 48 streets. The avenue grew in three stretches, each with its own name and style: French-influenced eclecticism, then Art Nouveau and Art Déco, and finally expressionism and American-style skyscrapers, from the Telefónica Building to the Capitol. From day one it was an axis of shops, cinemas and dance halls; the press compared it to Broadway. The Civil War put it in the line of fire, and locals renamed it “Avenue of the Shells.” The Franco regime called it Avenida de José Antonio, but Madrilenians went on saying “Gran Vía,” a nickname that spread across Spain, until Tierno Galván restored in 1981 the name the street had never lost in people’s mouths.