San Francisco Square

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Squares, streets & markets · Year: 1680

San Francisco Square is an urban space in Santa Cruz where history, religiosity, culture, landscape, botany, commercial, leisure and administrative activities are combined today. The space owes its name to the parish located on its upper side. The Church of San Francisco was part of the former convent of San Pedro Alcántara, founded in 1677 and which later, at the beginning of the 19th century, due to the confiscation, passed into municipal hands and housed for years the offices of the Santa Cruz town hall. At the beginning of the 20th century, the old convent building was demolished, preserving only its slender tower. On the resulting site was built what today is the seat of the Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Canarias (TSJC) (Canary Islands High Court of Justice).

On the lower side of the square runs San Francisco Street, formerly known as Calle Real, or more popularly, Calle de los Balcones (Balconies Street), due to the number of these types of overhanging elements that existed. It was a route where numerous consulates and various businesses related to port activity were established. The cobblestones bordering the square are a reminiscence of the old cobbles with which this road was made in 1780, and along which horses and mules pulling carts loaded with goods destined for the shops in the area wandered.

In this square, which serves as a link between the urban centre and the El Toscal neighbourhood, there are buildings from the 18th century (Casa Regal, from 1702), some from the 19th century (opposite the Audiencia) and others with modernist touches from the early 20th century.

The interior of this square has been used for the city to pay tribute to some of its most prominent figures. In the central gardened areas stand two busts: that of the journalist and politician, Patricio Estévanez Murphy (1850-1926); and that of Dr Santiago Beyro Martín (1859-1926), parish priest of the Church of San Francisco and distinguished orator. In the very centre of the enclosure stands the bronze figure of José Murphy (1774-1841), a liberal politician who achieved, as a deputy in the Cortes, that the city became the provincial capital of the Canary Islands from 1822.

The enclosure also has four spectacular centenary specimens of rubber trees ( Ficus elastica ), which with their enormous size and aerial roots in the form of lianas, provide a magnificent environmental quality.

This urban space has throughout its history been the scene of religious demonstrations, political protests, street riots and a place of residence for some months (in a large house that no longer exists) of Enrique de Borbón-Dos Sicilias, after being exiled in 1864 by decree of the government presided over by Narváez, when he was forced into exile for his participation in revolts against the monarchy embodied in his own cousin Isabel II. Already in the 20th century, this square was the scene of the assassination by gunfire of the president of the former Audiencia Provincial, José Ramón Fernández Díaz, when returning home at night on 9 October 1935.

Today the place is a beautiful and peaceful urban space, where the terraces of several catering businesses abound.

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