Calle de Víctor Hugo

Calle de Víctor Hugo runs down from the Gran Vía to the calle de las Infantas, in the Justicia quarter. Before the Gran Vía split Madrid in two, the street went by another name: calle de San Jorge, attributed either to a painting of the saint or to a gesture by Philip IV toward the monastery of Alfama. The turn toward the French writer came in 1902, during the centenary of his birth. A group of Madrid intellectuals asked for his name to be given to the calle de la Reina, where the Masserano Palace had housed General Léopold Hugo, the poet’s father. The boy Victor arrived in Madrid in 1811 and entered as a boarder at the Colegio de San Antón. But the idea met with objections, and the City Council found a middle way: it dedicated to Hugo the old calle de San Jorge, while the calle de la Reina kept its usual name.