STREET NAMED DARWIN

Located on the outskirts of Coll d'en Rebassa, the new 400 metre street links Camino de Can Pastilla (in front of the new Gesa building) with the roundabout leading onto the Levant motorway. At the opening, Calvo said that on the occasion of “Darwin Year” she was highly pleased that Palma was commemorating a man whose work was to have a global impact - at the time of his writing, the theory of evolution shocked Victorian society with its alternative version of Creation.

Calvo said that the idea of honouring Darwin throughout 2009 emerged from an initiative taken by the Balearic University. It was they who had communicated plans to honour the naturalist to local authorities and Palma Council had been pleased to further the commemoration.

Asked about the circumstances of the street being situated alongside an electricity station and high tension pylons, the Mayor said there was no connection between the new street and any external factors. Moreover, “Calle Darwin” she claimed, is located in an area of Palma which is set to “grow” with a “great future” ahead.

Commenting on another honour Palma has bestowed on a figure who was key to Darwin's work, Calvo pointed out that a street in the city is named after Felipe Bauzá, whose maps were used by the captain of The Beagle, the ship in which Darwin sailed round South America and Australia and New Zealand.