Street Corners of Merida / Las Esquinas de Merida

Many of the street corner names clearly refer to a building or structure that is, or once was, on that corner.  Like Los Arcos de Santa Lucia, showing where one of the original gates to the city was located.  Or  El Elefante, which I will get to in a later post.  Those are the easy ones.  Some, however, really do make you wonder just what the people were thinking. Take ' El Toro Agachado ' (61 x 74) for example.  It means 'The bull crouched', which should be pretty straightforward, right?  Bullfighting has been a beloved sport here for hundreds of years, and Merida has a working bullring. Not so fast.....   The corner in question is many blocks from the bull ring, in what has, as far as I can tell, always been a relatively well populated area.  So what's the story? There are two recorded explanations for its name, neither of which contain an actual four legged, horn waving bull.  I know which one I will choose to believe, but ...

Anyone who has visited Mérida will have noticed the red and white plaster plaques on many street corners throughout the older parts of the city.   There are many different stories as to how these street markers came to be, and why.   They all agree, however, that each corner got its name from something that happened there, or something that used to be there.   In a few rare cases, the name is based on a building or structure that still exists.   Most of the stories behind the names have been lost, and even the few that remain do not always agree, but I'll get to that later. Why did the citizens name their street corners when the city was laid out in a pretty easy grid pattern with numbered streets?  The story is that landmarks were easier to use for navigation and directions than those numbered streets.  And so those memorable buildings, or a particularly noteworthy occurrence became enshrined in the city's folklore and culture. Back to the plaq...