Paseo de las Acacias

The name comes straight down from the treetops. The acacias planted on both sides of the street named the Paseo de las Acacias, at a time when naming a street after its trees was common in Madrid. The planting dates back to the 18th century, when this strip was still a way out of the city toward the Manzanares, an extension of the ronda de Valencia heading to the puente de Toledo. The name evokes shade and blossom, but the reality of the promenade was far harsher. Through the 19th and early 20th centuries it filled with factories: a gasworks, tanneries, foundries. It was a working-class area of the old Inclusa, with ill-famed taverns and a row of stalls that stretched the Rastro flea market this way. Today the neighborhood around the promenade also bears the name of Las Acacias, and the old railway corridor project is slowly returning it to green. Where there was once a gasworks, the trees count again.