Calle de Pérez Galdós

Chueca·Justicia

The name honours Benito Pérez Galdós (1843–1920) by a Madrid council decision approved on 24 February 1899. The choice of this particular street was no accident: in his novel Fortunata y Jacinta (1886–1887) the narrator names it by its earlier name, Calle del Colmillo, as the place where Fortunata takes refuge. The street had carried that name since at least the seventeenth century, and kept it for over two hundred years until the tribute to Galdós.

Barely a hundred metres separate Hortaleza from Fuencarral, and along that stretch of the Justicia district runs Calle de Pérez Galdós. Texeira’s 1656 map already drew it, and by 1769 it appears with a name: Calle del Colmillo. The bullfighter Ángel Pastor lived here; in 1882 he was badly gored with Philip’s descendant Alfonso XII watching from the stands, and for months a steady trickle of visitors came asking after him. The new name arrived in 1899. Galdós was 56 and held a seat in the Royal Academy, but this street was no random pick: in Fortunata y Jacinta the narrator names it by its old sign, Colmillo, as the place where Fortunata takes shelter. The council gave the author back a setting from his own work. Juan Antonio Cabezas relished the paradox: the most meticulous chronicler of working-class Madrid was given a minor side street. Today it is pedestrian and lives on its café terraces and tapas bars.

Its names

  • Sin rótulo documentadoHasta c. 1656
  • Calle del Colmilloc. 1656 – 14 de abril de 1899
  • Calle de Pérez GaldósDesde el 14 de abril de 1899
Sources (8)

Crossings