November 1936

Four months after the barracks fell, Franco stood at the edge of the city. By early November 1936 almost everyone expected Madrid to fall within days. The government left for Valencia and handed the defence over to a junta and to the city itself. Then came what nobody had predicted, because the attack stalled in the Casa de Campo and in the Ciudad Universitaria, the university campus, and the slogan No pasarán, meaning they shall not pass, turned from a battle cry into fact.

From this square the Gran Vía runs east, in 1936 only twenty years old and the most modern thing Madrid had to offer. During the war it was officially renamed Avenida de Rusia, after the country that supplied the Republic with weapons. People gave it another name too, and that one had everything to do with the direction you are looking now.

We follow the Gran Vía east, as far as the crossing with the Calle de San Bernardo.