In the most commercial section of La Carrera street, next to where the La Salle School was, the offices of the old Trade Union House (CNS) were located, where the different unions of the Vertical Union met and labor advice was offered. to the workers. In this service, the professionalism of José Manuel González, popularly known as El Fosforito, stood out for many years.
In the patio of this building, different activities were offered in the afternoons, highlighting theater, English and music classes, taught by the general secretary of the aforementioned Union, Mr. Andrés Galván. There the La Sol Si Do Si murga and the organizing committee of the Three Kings Parade were formed.
On the same side of the street on the corner with Tabares de Cala, is the Casa Riquel, from the 18th century, renovated in 1940, which the Perpetual Regidor of Tenerife, Don Antonio Riquel de Ángulo (1721-1801), ordered to be built.
Also on the corner of Tabares de Cala, on the right side as you go up, is the 17th century building, which belonged to the captain of armored horses, Don José de Carriazo. In the lower part of this house and until the last third of the last century, the offices of Felipe El Practicante were located, a magnificent health professional and a well-loved person in the city. Next door is house number 6, two floors and a stone corner, which was owned by Don José Tabares de Cala y Núñez de Villavicencio (1637-1706), a Law graduate and Perpetual Regidor of Tenerife.
On the left side as you go up, and where today unfortunately there is a modern residential building with a gallery with commercial premises that ends on the parallel Herradores street, the Baulén family lived. The Treasury Collection offices were installed in that place, where the El Porvenir casino was located.
The building that forms an angle between the Plaza de La Catedral and this street housed the headquarters of the La Laguna Casino until its transfer. In its rooms the entity installed a roulette wheel, and thanks to its benefits they were able to buy a lot on the same street as La Carrera, before reaching Núñez de la Peña. In that building, once the Casino was moved, the popular Ramos stores were installed in 1930, until its final closure in 1987. In La Laguna that place was called for a time: “The corner of the Ramos”.
From the Plaza de La Catedral to Plaza de La Concepción, on Sunday afternoons, in the middle of the last century, these two sections of the street were closed to promote what was called: “THE Sunday Walk”, which consisted of prohibit the circulation of vehicles to create a pedestrian environment, where they played an important role, being located in that space, the one known as the Alemán bar, later the La Carrera cafeteria, the Leal Theater, the Casino and the Aguere hotel, where in some Dances were sometimes held for the youth.
In 1947, young people who performed military service during the summers were moved from Hoya Fría to Los Rodeos, the camp of the IPS (University Militias), given their condition of being pursuing university studies in Technical Schools and Higher Education Centers. , they were allowed to fulfill said obligation in the aforementioned camp. Most of the militiamen, wearing uniform, joined this Sunday walk.
In the first house on the stretch of road from Núñez de la Peña to the Plaza de La Concepción, the former director of the Canary Islands Institute, Don Adolfo Cabrera Pinto, lived until his retirement.
THE LOYAL THEATER
In 1912, the Lagunero Antonio Leal Martín commissioned the plans to build a theater, given the shortcomings of his hometown, to be able to offer cultural, musical and even cinematographic activities. He requests the corresponding authorization for its construction, after commissioning the architect Antonio Pintor, on the streets of La Carrera and Bencomo.
The work to complete the theater is progressing at a good pace and part of the materials, such as the wrought iron railings, the electrical, as well as the flooring, were ordered directly by Antonio Leal from different companies in Seville, where he lived. Although the works had not been completed in December 1915, the truth is that on September 11 of that year, the then mayor of La Laguna, Don Lucas Vega, informed the person in charge of the works, Juan de la Cruz Martín, of the permission for the construction. opening of the activity. The Leal Theater opens the same day the license is received.
Next to the Leal Theater, the three-story house with stone stripes on both sides of the façade, known as the Porlier House, was owned by Don Juan Antonio Porlier and built in the second half of the 17th century. In this house, Don Antonio Porlier y Soprani, president of the Council of the Indies, was born on April 16, 1722, appointed Minister of Grace and Justice by King Carlos IV, in 1790, the first Lagunero Canarian to hold such a position. He was appointed by the king first marquis of Bajamar in 1791.
This house passed to the Salazar de Frías family. Don Ildefonso de Castro y Salazar de Frías (1858-1935), grandson of the VII Marquis of Valle de Salazar, was born and lived there. A marble tombstone on the façade commemorates his memory as director of the La Fe Music Band, an inscription placed by the Board of Directors of the San Benito Regional Pilgrimage.
On the corner of Núñez de la Peña, with an ashlar façade and corner, is the building known as Mac-Kay, which belonged to the Calderín family and Colonel Don Lázaro Álvarez de Abreu lived there. In one of the premises of this house, a bar called El Refugio was installed, which was distinguished because lovers of the game of chess met there, who practiced it every day after lunch time.
The Radio Popular station was installed on the fourth floor of the building built in the 60s of the last century, next to the Aguere Hotel. It began broadcasting on February 2, 1969, under the direction of Don José Siverio Pérez, canon of the Cathedral and journalist, known as Don José. This station was integrated into COPE, Cadena de Ondas Populares Española and, later, moved its headquarters to Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
In the building next door, ordered to be built in 1760 by Don Cesáreo de la Torre y Ceballos, a native of Lima, and member of the Royal Economic Society of Friends of the Country of Tenerife, the Aguere hotel was later installed, it also housed the residence of the first bishop of Tenerife Don Luis Folguera, as well as the boarding school of the Canary Islands Institute.
This building was converted into the Aguere Hotel in 1885 by Don Benjamín Renshaw. The first clients were English, who were looking for a climate similar to that of La Laguna to cure their ailments. This hotel achieved a high prestige, such that illustrious visitors, when they came to the city, wanted to stay there. It is currently part of the Grupo Fariones hotel chain in Lanzarote.
The street ends where the Plaza de La Concepción and Antonio Zerolo Street begin, where on the corner of this La Carrera street is the convent and chapel of Las Siervas de María, a Religious Order that arrived in La Laguna on September 1, 1899. .