Pasaje José Pérez Pla
It bears the name of a José Pérez Pla from the first third of the 20th century, whose connection to this passage has not been documented.
A personal name over a corner of Vallehermoso where the city narrows until it fits into an alley. The passage begins near Calle de Vallehermoso and ends a few steps on, one of those alleys a passerby crosses without knowing it has a full name.
A José Pérez Pla leaves a trace in the Madrid of the early 20th century. A property owner by that name commissioned around 1929 a residential and office building on the Gran Vía, put up in 1931 with the ornamental flourish of the eclecticism of those years. Whether that developer is the same man who gives this passage its name, no record survives to confirm.
Madrid’s private passages tended to take the surname of whoever opened a way through his own plot, and the pattern fits a piece of the Chamberí expansion. The exact reason for the name is not documented.