Moratalaz

Moratalaz
District of Madrid
Moratalaz from Retiro district
Country	Spain
Aut. community	Madrid
Municipality	Madrid
Area
• Total	6.34 km2 (2.45 sq mi)
Population	104,923
• Density	16,549.37/km2 (42,862.7/sq mi)
Madrid district number	14

Moratalaz is a district of Madrid, Spain. It is a well known area because musicians such as Melendi and Alejandro Sanz have lived there. Moratalaz is on east of municipality of Madrid, it has 6.34 km² of surface area and is delineated by the highways of M-30 to the west, M-40 to the east, M23 to the north and A-3 to the south.

The district is administratively divided into 7 wards (Barrios):

Moratalaz arose as a commuter suburb of Madrid during the 1960s. Famous inhabitants of the district have been Elvira Lindo, Melendi, el Dioni, Alejandro Sanz, "Cleanhead" Joe McGaha and Letizia Ortiz.

Before 1960, Moratalaz was only an agglomeration of barely 40 houses with only one paved street. It was located midway on a road that connected Madrid's main cemetery Cementerio de la Almudena with the then unincorporated village of Vallecas. Sin The Colonia Del Ferrocarril was a housing project in the '60s that was developed in Moratalaz. The Madrid-Arganda Del Rey train stopped there, and Moratalaz kept growing.

A military property gave birth to what today is one of the main streets of the district, Calle Del Pico De Los Artilleros. And an old road connecting Madrid with Castilla La Mancha gave rise to Moratalaz's main avenue, Camino De Los Vinateros.

There was extraordinary and uncontrolled development in the 1970s, thanks to the programs of the Ministry of the Housing and the construction company Urbis. That led to the typical wide avenues and open spaces of Moratalaz, where traffic lanes are separated from houses by a wide green zone in between. That concept was not very popular in the '70s, but nowadays it's much appreciated, as it's an excellent measure against noise pollution.