Calle de Hortaleza

Calle de Hortaleza climbs nearly a kilometre from Gran Vía to the plaza de Santa Bárbara, cutting vertically through the whole Justicia quarter and what we knew as Chueca. The name hides no mystery: it was the road out of the Puerta de Santa Bárbara towards the town of Hortaleza. Until the seventeenth century it ran through woodland; when Madrid overflowed its walls, it filled with houses. Two religious houses shaped its character: the Convent of Santa María Magdalena, which locals called Las Recogidas, and the Escuelas Pías de San Antón, whose church Pedro de Ribera designed in 1740 and for which Goya painted “The Last Communion of Saint Joseph of Calasanz.” At the corner with Santa Brígida, Ventura Rodríguez raised in 1772 the Fountain of the Terrapins, with two stone terrapins embracing a great shell. They blocked the passage of carriages and were removed in 1864; anyone who looks down today will find a turtle carved into the pavement marking where they stood.