Followup

Over a year ago, I posted about new garbage cans that were being installed in the centro histórico, as well as some affluent neighborhoods in the city. Given the enormous quantity that have gone missing of late, it would appear they make terrific house gifts.

Even father back, I posted about the Cine Teresa, a three-thousand seat movie palace that had been in its same location on the Eje Central since 1942. In the last couple of decades, it had become one of the city's most notorious porn houses. Unfortunately, it closed its doors over the summer. Here is a link to a brief history of the place, written by Héctor de Mauelón and published in the online version of the newspaper Milenio.

Sigue siendo el rey

I am truly sorry that when I passed through Philadelphia last spring I didn't stop in this restaurant on Chestnut Street. I am particularly intrigued by the sign that promises to change your life, and which proudly announces that they are "open 14 hours."

Bye bye New Orleans

It's been swell. But I pretty much took care of what I had to take care of here. So I am giving up my New Orleans apartment. With my mitigation work, I will have to travel between the U.S. and Mexico constantly. But this last year, in which I spent more time in the U.S. than I had in ages, I realized just how much Mexico City has become home to me. And how important it is to have a home.

New Orleans is a unique place. That is a Japanese pot-bellied pig playing with the puppy.

Sometimes it's a little jarring. The words on this house exhort readers to "shoot a thief," holdover instructions from the looting after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Just a few weeks ago, the owners of the property repainted the facade, with a sign for Dixie beer.

It's not always functional, in terms of infrastructure or distribution of goods and services. Sometimes I felt that I had to live for many years in Mexico to get to New Orleans -- the third world. It will always have an important place in my heart and remain on my map.

Don't tell Allah you ate here

When I got to Mexico City all those years ago I was never very enthusiastic about eating a dish called chamorro, a pork shank so huge that when it is finished it looks like a lost dinosaur bone.  But then an advertising executive named Jorge Loaeza invited me to join him at a cantina called Bar El Sella, on Calle Dr. Balmis #210, a stone's throw from Avenida Cuauhtémoc and just a few steps into the Colonia Doctores. El Sella's version of chamorro (pictured above) is braised and steamed and so delicious that I am convinced it would convert any Jew or Muslim who took the trouble to eat it.

Other house specialties are variations of the tortilla española and parsely fried in bacon fat. It is around the corner from the Hospital General, so many of its patrons are doctors in their lab coats on their lunch hour. Last time I was at El Sella, I spied a table full of medical men, sharing a chamorro, a tortilla and a steak. Given their menu choices, I asked them if they were cardiologists. I'm afraid they didn't think I was very funny.

A hotel with a past

The Hotel Roosevelt, which abuts the Colonia Condesa on Avenida Insurgentes and Avenida Veracruz, opened its doors in  1938. Anecdotes about its past proliferate. Until the mid-1940s, there was a bullfight stadium located in walking distance. An arrangement was made in which the toreros were allowed to change into their bullfighting gear at the Roosevelt, and then march through the streets, parade-style, to the arena. Cubans swear that this is where Fidel and Che stayed while planning the revolution in the late 1950s. Actor Ignacio López Tarso recalled a friendly manager who allowed him to sleep on the roof in the 1950s, before he became a star of Mexican cinema.

By the early 1990s, the Roosevelt had acquired a seedy reputation. Some women who worked at a couple of notorious night spots in spitting distance, the Bar Jemma and Cherry's Bar, would take their clients to the hotel to exercise the world's oldest profession. Soon after, the clubs closed down and a new management took over. Rooms were renovated and the facade was changed (as was the hotel's reptuation). Over the summer, the facade was repainted -- how long will it remain that white? Today it is one of the very few modestly priced hotels in the area, a decidedly expensive neighborhood by Mexico City standards.