Plaza de Perseo
Recalls the Greek hero Perseus and the constellation that bears his name, in a neighborhood whose every street points to the firmament.
The Plaza de Perseo was born with the Estrella neighborhood, built by the developer Urbis from the 1950s on in northeastern Retiro. Those who laid out its blocks decided to look skyward: Calle de Sirio, the Calle de la Estrella Polar, the Calle de la Cruz del Sur, the Calle del Pez Volador, Calle de la Lira. Among those names of the firmament this square opened.
Perseus is at once a Greek hero and a constellation of autumn and winter. The myth recalls him beheading Medusa, whose gaze turned men to stone, and then rescuing Andromeda chained to a rock before a sea monster. The sky preserves the scene, with the star Algol blinking every few days as a darker companion eclipses it. From that same region spring the Perseids, the meteor shower that each August seems to be born of Perseus, right above the square.