Calle Marqués de Riestra

Since 1950, the street has been dedicated to José Riestra López, the first Marquis of Riestra (1853-1923), a great benefactor of Pontevedra. Among other initiatives, he was responsible for bringing electricity to the city in 1888 and the tramway in 1889, as well as various factories and businesses (the first electricity factories in Galicia in 1888 in Verdura square^[2] and the first ceramics factory in 1895 in La Barca, as well as the Riestra Bank), improving the city's streets and supporting the construction of institutional buildings.^[3][4][5] He devoted part of his capital to the city and also donated his manor house and estate at A Caeira for conversion into a large hospital for soldiers repatriated from Cuba and the Philippines following the Spanish-American War.^[6]

In 1853, what is now Marquis de Riestra Street was a road that led from the old St Dominic's Gate of the Pontevedra walls in the España Square to the Saint Joseph's field in what is now the Saint Joseph's Square. From this date onwards, with the first expansion of the city, this road was progressively urbanised,^[7] until it was finally consolidated as a street around 1880,^[8] forming part of the first expansion of the city outside the old fortified area.^[9] Pontevedra City Council put up for sale the line of plots of land opposite Riestra Street that came from the Dominican estate, which had been acquired by auction.^[10]

On 21 December 1880, the Pontevedra City Council decided to name the street that runs from the Alameda Gardens to the end of the old Fairground after the liberal politician Francisco Antonio Riestra Vallaure (father of the Marquis), who died in Madrid, for his enterprising spirit and for having carried out most of the city's initial expansion work from 1860 onwards.^[7][11]

In these new areas of Pontevedra's first expansion, buildings were erected which, through their form and function, reinforced the bourgeois restoration project, representing the new Pontevedra. In 1896, the publisher, journalist and politician Andrés Landín Varela built a building at number 7, on the ground floor of which he set up a printing works and bookshop, as well as his home on the first floor.^[12] In 1905, Manuel Martínez Bautista, a Cuban indiano, completed work on the Villa Pilar mansion on the left-hand side of the street (with a rear façade overlooking the Palm Trees Park).^[13]

In 1927, the demolition of the premises of a garage on the right-hand side of the street was imposed to allow the new General Gutiérrez Mellado Street, which led to Riestra Street from Michelena Street, to be fully opened up. The last houses blocking the opening of the new street had already been expropriated and demolished in May 1927, although the garage premises on Riestra street were not demolished until 1930.^[14][15][16]

In 1950, the street was renamed Marquis of Riestra, a title granted by King Alfonso XIII to José Riestra López on 4 February 1893 by royal decree. The Riestra passageway from Michelena street was named Marquise street, in reference to the wife of the Marquis of Riestra, María Calderón Ozores, daughter of the Count of San Juan.^[17] In 1965, the Vázquez Lescaille galleries were opened, from General Gutiérrez Mellado Street to Marquis of Riestra Street.^[18]

In 2006, the first section of the street, from the  España Square to General Gutiérrez Mellado Street, was renovated and made pedestrian-friendly.^[19]

Marquis de Riestra is a 260-metre-long street located in the city's first urban expansion zone, which follows a north–south-east axis and is divided into two sections: a paved pedestrian section from España Square to General Gutiérrez Mellado Street and another section facing south-east from Gutiérrez Mellado Street to Saint Joseph Square, which has two pavements and a central lane for traffic.^[20]

It is an essentially flat street, with an average width of 11 metres. The pedestrianised Marquise Street, Gutiérrez Mellado Street on the right-hand side and the small streets of Fray Tomás de Sarria and Enrique Labarta on either side of the garden of the Villa Pilar mansion converge here from north to south.^[21][22]

This is a very commercial and service-oriented street, with numerous shops, cafés and bank branches. At the beginning, at the junction with Gran Vía de Montero Ríos, is the apse of the Gothic ruins of the former convent and church of Saint Dominic, next to a stone calvary that stood in the forecourt of the former medieval church of Saint Bartholomew before it was demolished.^[23][24] In the middle of the street is Villa Pilar, an eclectic mansion built in 1905.^[21]