Calle de Prim

Before honoring a general, this street honored a tree. It began as a dead-end alley people called del Saúco (of the Elder), after the elder tree that outlived the disappearance of the Marquesa de las Nieves’s orchard. In 1852 it was extended to the Paseo de Recoletos. The street skirts the Palacio de Buenavista, residence of General Juan Prim while he headed the government. Prim had led the Glorious Revolution of 1868 and pushed harder than anyone to bring Amadeo of Savoy to the throne. On 27 December 1870, two carts blocked his way on today’s Marqués de Cubas and several men fired their carbines into his coach. He died three days later of septicemia. The bullet-riddled carriage is now kept in the Army Museum. The investigation pointed to several instigators —⁠the Duke of Montpensier, General Serrano⁠— without anyone being convicted. In 1895 the council renamed the street in his memory, and there lies the fittingness of the tribute: they chose not just any street, but the one that rings the palace where Prim lay dying.