The plaza de Pedro Zerolo is a public square located in the centre of

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

, Spain.

History and description

It lies on the

Centro District Centro District is located in the Valles Centrales Region of the State of Oaxaca, Mexico. The district includes the state capital Oaxaca and satellite towns. The district has an average elevation of 1,550 meters. The climate is mild, with average ...

, most specifically in the administrative neighborhood of Justicia. It is considered part of

Chueca Chueca is an area of central Madrid, named after its main square, Plaza de Chueca. It is known as Madrid's gay neighborhood. Plaza de Chueca was named after Spanish composer and author Federico Chueca. It is located in the administrative ward ...

. It was created around 1836, as the plot formerly occupied by the convent of Capuchinos de la Paciencia was planted with

elm Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus ''Ulmus'' in the plant family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical-montane regions of North ...

s and

acacia ''Acacia'', commonly known as the wattles or acacias, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa and Australasia. The genus na ...

s. The square, known as the "plaza de Bilbao", was populated in the 1860s with

conifer Conifers are a group of conifer cone, cone-bearing Spermatophyte, seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the phylum, division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single ...

s and

magnolia ''Magnolia'' is a large genus of about 210 to 340The number of species in the genus ''Magnolia'' depends on the taxonomic view that one takes up. Recent molecular and morphological research shows that former genera ''Talauma'', ''Dugandiodendro ...

s. In 1931, in order to avoid the repetition of placenames, the square was renamed to "plaza de Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla", in honor of the noted republican politician. Comienzo oficial de las fiestas del Orgullo 2018 12

Comienzo oficial de las fiestas del Orgullo 2018 12

Following the end of the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

in 1939, the new Francoist administration toyed with the idea of renaming the square after

Onésimo Redondo Onésimo Redondo Ortega (16 February 1905 – 24 July 1936) was a Spanish Falangist politician. He founded the Juntas Castellanas de Actuación Hispánica, a political group that merged with Ramiro Ledesma's Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicali ...

(a Fascist politician who had died in the war) or using the name of "Capuchinos de la Paciencia" (in a nod to the predecessor of the square), but in 1940 the authorities ruled the reset of the name to "plaza de Bilbao". Some years later, in 1944, the city council decided to rename the space as "plaza de Vázquez de Mella", after the Carlist ideologist

Juan Vázquez de Mella Juan Vázquez de Mella y Fanjul (1861–1928) was a Spanish politician and a political theorist. He is counted among the greatest Traditionalist thinkers, at times considered the finest author of Spanish Traditionalism of all time. A politician ac ...

. In order to inaugurate the new name of the square, a fountain topped by a bust of the far right politician was unveiled on 24 July 1946. As a parking lot was built in the square in 1950, the fountain was moved first to the

Paseo del Prado The Paseo del Prado is one of the main boulevards in Madrid, Spain. It runs north–south between the Plaza de Cibeles and the Plaza del Emperador Carlos V (also known as Plaza de Atocha), with the Plaza de Cánovas del Castillo (the location ...

and then to the neighbouring Plaza de la Platería de Martínez, only to return to the plaza de Vázquez de Mella after 1999, when the square was reformed as the surface parking lot was demolished with a new underground parking lot being built instead. The plenary of the

Ayuntamiento de Madrid The City Council of Madrid ( es, Ayuntamiento de Madrid) is the top-tier administrative and governing body of the Madrid, the capital and biggest city of Spain. The City Council is composed by three bodies; the Mayor of Madrid, Mayor who leads th ...

approved the change of name of the square to "plaza de Pedro Zerolo" on 24 July 2015, with the yes votes of

Ahora Madrid Ahora Madrid ( en, Madrid Now) was a citizen platform of popular unity, formed as an ''instrumental party without organic internal life'', in order to stand for the municipal elections of 2015 in the city of Madrid. For this project, '' Gane ...

PSOE The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party ( es, Partido Socialista Obrero Español ; PSOE ) is a social-democraticThe PSOE is described as a social-democratic party by numerous sources: * * * * political party in Spain. The PSOE has been in gov ...

and

Citizens Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...

, and the vote against of the People's Party. The new name paid homage to the LGBT activist and former PSOE councillor

Pedro Zerolo Pedro González Zerolo (20 July 1960, Caracas – 9 June 2015, Madrid) was a Spanish-Venezuelan lawyer, politician and a town councillor of the city of Madrid, and a member of the Federal Executive Committee of the PSOE where he held the position ...

, died in June 2015 from

pancreatic cancer Pancreatic cancer arises when cell (biology), cells in the pancreas, a glandular organ behind the stomach, begin to multiply out of control and form a Neoplasm, mass. These cancerous cells have the malignant, ability to invade other parts of t ...

. The rename was decreed by the Junta de Gobierno on 28 January 2016. with the unveiling of the new square signs taking place on 15 May 2016.

References

;Citations ;Bibliography * * {{authority control

Justicia neighborhood, Madrid