With street vendors gone, noise drops in Centro Historico

Mexico City's Centro Historico, the old urban heart of the capital, has seen a significant decrease in measured noise levels since the local government managed to relocate the "informal" street vendors that for years choked the stone streets and sidewalks. At the same time, noise levels have risen in the areas where the ambulantes were moved, the streets surrounding designated in-door shopping markets mostly on the eastern side of the Centro, reports El Universal in today's edition.

The paper adds a sceney sidebar about how dramatically life has changed for merchants and residents in Centro since the ambulantes left. People who live and work in Centro seem uniformly awed by how open and practically new the area looks and feels. But are the ambulantes better off?

* Pictured above, a D.F. gent on a Sunday afternoon outside the National Museum of Art, one of my very favorite in the city. The vendors in the rear were part of a temporary food and crafts fair.

Comments

[reinito]

probably the ambulante leaders are better off. now they are terratenientes.

[Victor Cazares]

there's a great hole-in-the-wall taqueria (literally, hole in the wall) on the corner of the street right before you get to el templo mayor. hopefully it'll still be there when and if i move to el df.
i personally liked the crowds, walking among so many...and even among crowds, el centro still felt open, oddly enough.
el centro historico de juarez, however...