Mexico City has some of the best street/urban art murals in the world, but almost all the attention in the press is focused on work done in the center of the city. In reality, much of the best work is being done on the east side of the Mexico City Metro Area (MCMA). The muralism […]
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It would be hard to overstate the symbolic importance of Chapultepec Park, not only to Mexico City, but to the country as well. It has played a key role in Mexico’s history since the Mesoamerican era, with emperors and presidents eager to leave their mark on it. But its recent history also includes neglect. To […]
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Like virtually every pueblo in Mexico, residents of San Gregorio Atlapulco (in Xochimilco, Mexico City) celebrate Semana Santa (Holy Week) with processions, extra masses and a depiction of Christ’s crucifixion. But one thing sets San Gregorio apart from other pueblos: Holy Week is run by fourteen young men known as Los Varones. There’s no group […]
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1. Mexico City On the way to Ecuador, I took a five-day diversion to Mexico City. As souvenirs, I picked up a stomach bug and a rather extreme case of sun-burn. Neither were timetabled, but both easily gained with the correct measure of self-neglect. I was respectively supported by a high altitude that increased the […]
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I first met one of Xipe Tótec’s priests on March 30, 2018. I know the exact date because, happily, my Nikon records the date of every photo I shoot. Me, I’m not that good at keeping accurate records. Fortunately, I didn’t actually meet the priest because Xipe Tótec was the Mexica god of, among other […]
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Mexico is a country of extraordinary contradictions, a country in a state of always becoming; the heartbeat of a thousand beginnings: half built casas, crumbling stone fences, walls, piles of rocks coming from nowhere, leading nowhere, trailing off into nothing. A place where the sacred and the profane co-exist in this timeless. immutable landscape. It […]
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Let’s face it. Escaping Mexico City can be a great thing. Now more than ever. So much so that one would think that this unrestrained monster we call the Federal District, and the paranoia revolving around it, is a modern phenomenon. Time to think again. In the early 1700s a century-old community of monks, dwelling […]
Continue ReadingThe Zona Rosa is located conveniently close to Mexico City’s Centro Histórico . It lies on the northern side of the famous Paseo de la Reforma (a long tree-lined street modeled after the Champs-Elysées with its many historic monuments and traffic circles, referred to here as glorietas. The Zona is also bordered by Chapultepec Avenue to the […]
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With a population oscillating at around 20 million, streets jammed with cars, and buildings that range from sublime to ridiculous, it is hard to imagine that Mexico City was, for many years, a model of urban development and civility. The “City of Palaces,” as it was once known, was orderly and planned, with uniform building […]
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Please pardon me. I have neglected Mexico City. It has been years since I have told you how much I love it. Don’t laugh. For much of our time in Mexico, the really big city has meant life-threatening smog, bumper to bumper deadlocks and keep your hand on your wallet. Careful on the metro and […]
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