Marqués de Celada street begins at the meeting with San Antonio and Hermanos Marrero streets. In the past it was known as the road that goes to Tacoronte and since 1743, Empedrada Street. It ends, after the church of San Benito, at the confluence with Avenida de la Candelaria. The old name Empedrada comes from the need to avoid the damage that occurred in the Villa de Abajo, due to the strong runoff that was produced by the waters of the Rodeo and the upper part of the Villa de Arriba. Later this road was paved and, later, as it is today, paved.
The labeling since 1930 as Marquis of Celada is in reference to Don Ángel Benítez de Lugo y Cloguen, tenth Marquis of Celada. La Orotava (1855-1928). He was mayor of La Laguna, general secretary of the Royal Economic Society of Friends of the Country of Tenerife and in 1896 Senior Slave of the Pontifical, Royal and Venerable Slavery of Christ. On this street, as on the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, most of the crosses were installed (the remaining ones, up to the fourteenth of the Via Crucis, are found on the road that goes to the Calvary of Saint Lazarus).
The first cross was installed at the beginning of this street, the second very close, and the third is in the house, now renovated, of Domingo Cabral, a very poor neighbor who had to lie in 1712, given his precarious family situation before the clergyman. Domingo Pinto, when he was leaving to celebrate mass in the church of La Concepción, telling him that one of his children had died and that he needed money for the burial. He later confessed that it was a lie, but the priest forgave him because he understood his situation. The sixth cross (known as Bartolo’s) was missing for a long time, from the 1930s until it was recovered, thanks to the educational action of the Camino de la Villa Public School, in 2007.
These crosses are also decorated by the neighbors, every May 3, on the festival of the Holy Cross. There was a neighbor from this street who, upon learning that an image of Christ and his altarpiece from the nearby church of La Concepción had been sold, heard a voice that told her: “Rescue me, rescue me.” The lady sold her house, bought the image and for this reason it is known as the Christ of the Rescue. The brotherhood was founded with the name of the Santísimo Cristo del Rescate and Nuestra Señora de los Dolores, on April 25, 1979, although its origins date back to a primitive one that existed in 1672.
It has always been a street with great commercial activity, which is why it is considered the main street in Villa de Arriba. As an example we will mention, starting on the right side towards San Benito, the butcher shop of Francisco, who later was the doorman of the Coliseum cinema. Later Café Habana was opened. It also had Rosalba’s hair salon, Antonio Expósito’s barber shop, and Don Rafael’s little window of the cross. On the corner with San José was the Calera de Ismael and his sons Angelito and Fernando, where the material used to whitewash the lagoon houses was shipped, as well as hardware material. The Ferreras family had a shoe store and a bakery. The Oramas garages were also installed, where the buses of the company Transporte de Tenerife SL were kept, the carpentry of Cho Lucas el Carretero, the church of San Benito, and the food house where typical Canarian dishes of Lorenzo El were served. Kíkere, well-known cockerel of the city.
On the left side of the street and on the corner with San Antonio was the Cipriano Hernández store, followed by the Antonio del Rosario supermarket, the Los Fiscales and Lorenzo barbershops, and Manuel the banana shop. We highlight the installation of the old roof tile, Benito’s shoe store, the candle and scrap metal factory, the Cooperativa del Campo La Candelaria, the Las Moneditas restaurant and the well-known Caseta de Madera eatery, owned by Ramón.
On the corner of Carretas Street, lived the family of the Cuban-Canarian writer Nivaria Tejera, daughter of a Cuban mother and a Lagunero father. She lived in La Laguna since she was two years old and emigrated with her family in 1944, once her father was released after his conviction for his opposition to the Franco regime. Her greatest literary success was the publication of El Barranco. With her work Sonámbulos she won the Seix Barral Biblioteca Breve 1971 prize, becoming the first woman to win it. She died in Paris.
LAGUNEROS CHRISTMAS CAKES
Christmas cakes had their time of greatest splendor between 1900 and 1915, with Villa de Arriba being the area where the Guerra Molina family’s pastry shops were located, on Empedrada Street, Mr. Panchito’s, on the nearby San Street. Antonio, and María Gracia, on San Agustín street.
The journalist Luis Álvarez Cruz dealt with cakes in his book Oh, what warm cakes, what cakes, in which the pastry chef José Expósito Rodríguez told him that the greatest splendor of La Laguna pastry shops was in 1885, although it was much earlier because the newspaper El Ómnibus, in its edition of December 19, 1855, the seller of French origin Juan Caubín highlights that to please the taste of his clients, in Las Palmas, he had a pastry chef come from La Laguna to perfectly prepare the cakes. At number 27, the Ángel de la Guarda school was located, which was founded by the sisters Emiliana and Marina, and later moved to the El Rayo area on the old road towards Las Mercedes. By Resolution of June 10, 1985, its name changed to the current one: Decroly College, in memory of the Belgian doctor and psychologist.
The journalist and writer Domingo García Barbuzano (La Laguna, 1954), editor of the newspapers La Tarde and El Día, was born and lived at number 29 for more than 40 years. He is the author of more than a dozen books, highlighting among them El Corsario Amaro Pargo, La Monja Incorrupta del Convento de Santa Catalina de La Laguna, Sor María Jesús, and Practices and Beliefs of a Canarian Santiguadora.
In house number 33, the journalist and writer Juan Pérez Delgado (Nijota), La Laguna (1898-1973), was born. Although he studied law, his main profession was as editor of the newspaper La Prensa and until his retirement in 1968, as editor-in-chief of El Día. Author of several plays, poetry and narrative. The most popular was Love on a Bicycle. The Lagunero City Council, commissioned by the Orfeón La Paz, inaugurated on November 9, 1975, a bust in his honor, the work of the sculptor Francisco Borges Salas, installing it in the Plaza de La Concepción.
At number 51 of this street, and in a place owned by Doña Guadalupe Domínguez known as La Mosquita, the folkloric group El Carmen was born in 1947, when a group of friends and family with a love for folklore and musical knowledge met with that goal. This group was led in the musical section by Ángel Hernández, known as Ito, founder of the Acaymo ensemble and the Rancho Grande Dúo and string director of the Orfeón La Paz de La Laguna. The dance troupe was directed by his brother Antonio (Sergeant Antonio), who later was chief of the Lagunera Local Police. The following year, through an agreement with the Real Hespérides Lagunero Football Club, they reached an agreement to join this society. They began their rehearsals in the facilities that the aforementioned Real Hespérides had on the old Bencomo street, today Alcalde Alonso Suárez Melián. In 1948, as Rondalla Real Hespérides, they participated in the first Pilgrimage of San Benito de La Laguna.
