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Tepito

Tepito is of deep and abiding interest to fans of Mexico City. Famous, and at times, infamous, it's an ancient and profound reflection on everything the capital of Mexico City aspires toward and has overcome. It's an area of continual tianguis to such an extent that many streets are passable only on foot. Many are covered in semi-permanent roofs and porticos.

The Nahuatl name Teocaltepiton breaks down to simply tepiton (little)- and teocalli- (temple). And there is a record of a small temple erected here during ancient times when the neighborhood received those refused entry into the giant market of Tlatelolco. Remember, La Lagunilla was at that time a real lagoon used for loading and unloading canoes. Tepito was then the area to the north and east.

Today's Tepito retains not only that giant market air, but also the sense of the market for everyone else. Historically it was long associated with a black market and with the sale of all manner of goods not available anywhere else.

The area was long remembered as a final point of resistance against the Spanish at the fall of Tenochtitlan. The Temple of the Conception Tequipehuacan still bears the name given by the Mexica at that time:  "place of slavery." Informal trade here dates especially from the 1880s when many merchants were removed from the City Center.

But Tepito's reputation is also based on its athletes, boxers, the Luchador "El Santo" and on its multi-family complexes, converted to warehouses, and then back to housing. It's a fascinating microcosm and still one that's worth investigating for its sheer vigor.

The Map

The map shows three sections of Colonia Morelos in Cuautémoc, to the west. Another Colonia Morelos is across Vidal Alcocer/Av. de Trabajo to the immediate east in Venustiano Carranza. Most experts, and there are likely thousands of them, will say that Tepito includes parts of all five neighborhoods. Like Lagunilla, which also overlaps, Tepito is a conceptual barrio rather than a formal delineation of territory. It's also much more than that.

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