Madrid It has always been an open, meeting place. People from many places have always gathered here and no one feels strange, it is a welcoming city. But sometimes the festive, casual atmosphere led to a fight and altercation. There was a corrala especially known for these incidents, the House of Tócame Roque. How this story is created says a lot about what this city and its inhabitants are like.

The corralas are a type of housing, very characteristic of traditional Madrid. novels like Fortunata and Jacinta de Benito Pérez Galdós They tell us what life was like in them. They were built as sliders, we can still see some in the neighborhood of Lavapies and other places in Madrid. They began to be built in the 16th century, and were very common in the 19th century. It was the response of the time to the need to accommodate new emigrants to the rapidly growing capital of Spain. In these corralas, the homes are distributed on each of the floors, and they all look out onto a central patio where a large part of the public life of the community took place and which gives light and ventilation to the houses.

What has come down to us is that the house was given as an inheritance to two brothers, Juan and Roque. They could not agree on the distribution. Both argued, each one postulated that the inheritance belonged entirely to them. Juan told Roque: “Touch me, Roque”. and Roque answered: “The house is up to me, Juan”. The dispute lasted for years, and the neighbors and all the people of Madrid gave the house a name: Tócame Roque.

Ramon de la Cruz He dedicated one of his popular skits to this rowdy home: "Petra and Juana or the good landlord"

It was based on the story that told that the residents of the corrala rioted and decided to stop paying rent to the landlords, denying them entry to the property.

At the confluence of Barquillo Street and Belén Street, a plaque commemorates the place where the corrala was located with wooden railings open to a large, noisy and crowded neighborhood patio, the house of Tócame Roque, an expression that we still use today to define a house where a lot of commotion is made and the neighbors make noise and hubbub.

A abrazo.