By Domingo Medina.| The street that runs from Plaza del Cristo to its meeting with Avenida de la Universidad (Camino Largo) has been named after Professor Quintín Benito y Benito since April 20, 1921, the date on which the La Laguna City Council unanimously agrees to accept the popular request to honor such an illustrious and beloved professor with a path.
Since 1797 this street was called Calle de La Cruz, years later, specifically, it appears in the censuses since 1855 as Las Cruces, because in its first section, the oldest, were built two chapels or small hermitages that were dedicated to the lagoon. built in honor of the Holy Cross. It is clear, therefore, that one was built first and then the other. According to Rodríguez Moure, these buildings were initially in the Vega Lagunera and were later moved when these lands were distributed in 1810, to the place they occupy today. The first at the corner of Plaza del Cristo and the other at the intersection with the Tejina highway, today Argentina Avenue.
Despite the information of the illustrious historian, the truth is that, both in the census indicated above, and in the map of the City of 1775, by the engineer and colonel Amat de Tortosa, chapels appear located on the corners of the aforementioned street. . In the topographical document, in the Claim section at number 12, it says “Cruz de Juan de Vila”, in reference to Juan de Vera. And in 30 “Cruz de los Amos”, clearly in review of the Alamos. Therefore, from our point of view the constructions of the chapels were not linked to the distribution of land in the Vega Lagunera.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CHAPELS
The chapel of the Cross of Juan de Vera, also known as the Chapel of the Blacksmiths, began to be built in 1720 at the initiative of the Lagunero couple, the surgeon Don Juan Martínez de Vera and his wife Doña Francisca Enrique, with a similar layout and dimensions. Like the other chapels of the City built in honor of the Holy Cross, it is built by four walls of stone and adobe, and the wooden roof supports the Arab tiles that form the hipped roof. On the side facing the Tejina road, a wooden cross is attached with the inscription: “Cruz de los Herreros Chapel. XIX century”. The Cross that is preserved inside is made of wood covered in embossed silver and with plant motifs.
The Cruz de los Álamos chapel, also known as Capilla del Cristo, because the entrance is on the corner of the Plaza de San Francisco or Plaza del Cristo, appears attached on its right and rear side to a traditional lagoon house. Its floor plan is rectangular, like that of the other chapels. It has a single entrance door bordered by a semicircular stone arch, the entire construction is topped by a hipped roof of Arab tiles. This building was rebuilt since its original coffered ceiling disappeared. The Cross is made of wood covered with embossed and gilded silver sheet, with floral ornaments. In the three nails it appears that it was executed in the 18th century.
In this section, the oldest of the street, the journalist, university professor and La Laguna writer Adrián Alemán de Armas, La Laguna (1935-2008), lived and died. Author of several books on Aguere’s heritage. He was the first general director of Culture of the Government of the Canary Islands and advisor to the Special Plan for the Protection of the Historical Complex of San Cristóbal de La Laguna.
A small alley on the left side of this street, labeled until a few years ago with the name Torriani, was a very visited place because there was a gofio mill and also a candy factory known as the “peseta sweets.” This candy store was a must-visit for those people who went to the Sanctuary of Christ Lagunero every Friday.
1978 CONSTITUTION PARK
In the large space of an old walled orchard, between the Tejina highway and the Camino Largo, facing this second section of the road, the most modern on Las Cruces street, the first democratic corporation to emerge from the year’s elections In 1979, he built a public park with a landscaped promenade and a small water channel with plants that was inaugurated in 1982, and was named: Parque de la Constitución de 1978.
The reasons why this beautiful lagoon corner that became a public park and takes its name from the Constitution, were the recommendations received from the Government of the Nation to the different local corporations, to root the democratic process of ’78, through nominate the new infrastructures with names similar to the Magna Carta, in the face of threats from the coup plotters, who only a year before the inauguration of this green zone, organized an attempted coup d’état with the assault on the Congress of Deputies that fortunately did not prosper.
Currently, a duck pond has been added to the initial works of the park and two busts have been placed in the central flower beds of the gardens, one of Simón Bolívar and the other of José Martí.
The last stretch of the street, where it meets the Camino Largo, is tree-lined and has beautiful gardens that have always been one of the favorite spots for Laguneros and visitors to walk, and where poets sing to the city, such as Pedro García Cabrera. , Antonio Zerolo, José Tabares Bartlett, Domingo J. Manrique, Francisco Izquierdo, Manuel Verdugo Bartlett, Luis Álvarez Cruz or Juan Pérez Delgado (Nijota).
WHO WAS QUINTÍN BENITO?
Don Quintín Benito y Benito was a professor and director of the General and Technical Institute of the Canary Islands. Professor of Arithmetic and Algebra. He is a councilor and deputy mayor of the La Laguna City Council and also a provincial deputy.
On April 5, 1921, one year after his death, by popular initiative and considered as a “benefactor of the students and the proletariat”, the plenary session of the Hon. San Cristóbal de La Laguna City Council, held on April 20 of that year, unanimously agreed to nominate the old Las Cruces street as Quintín Benito.
He also spoke in favor of placing, within the program of the 1921 Christ festivities, a plaque on the façade of the house where he lived and died, in what was known as Casa Román on San Agustín Street, in reference to its first owner, Colonel Gabriel Román Manrique de Lara, today the headquarters of the National University of Distance Education (UNED).
