Plaza de Romita: the village of Aztacalco that survived inside Mexico City's Roma neighbourhood

In the Roma Norte of Mexico City, the neighbourhood of specialty coffee shops and Art Déco houses, there is a spot where the streets suddenly narrow. Turning onto calle Real de Romita, one block from the Eje Cuauhtémoc and three from avenida Chapultepec, you emerge into a small cobbled square: the Plaza de Romita. At its centre stand a circular fountain and a few leafy trees, and to one side the chapel of San Francisco Xavier. It is the heart of La Romita, a micro-neighbourhood with streets narrower than the rest of Roma, physically inside the colonia yet historically set apart.

The origins of Aztacalco

The original name is Aztacalco, "place of the herons" in Nahuatl. Before Roma existed, this was an islet ringed by the canals of Lake Texcoco, on the south-western edge of Tenochtitlan. After the conquest the indigenous population stayed put, keeping a measure of autonomy even when the lake was drained and the settlement fused with the rest of the city. The nickname "Romita" arrived in the eighteenth century: a tree-lined avenue leading from here to Chapultepec reminded European visitors of a promenade in Rome, in Italy. It appears in the municipal records from 1752.

The chapel

The chapel is the oldest and most history-laden building in the neighbourhood. The first religious structure dates from around 1530, only a few years after the fall of Tenochtitlan: an ermita built as part of the Franciscan evangelisation and dedicated to Santa María de la Natividad Aztacalco. Over the centuries it changed patron several times until the current San Francisco Xavier, consecrated in 1929; the nave and façade were altered in 1973. It is a small temple, single-naved, with a single-tier bell tower, a plain portal and an open balcony chapel beside the façade; inside, the wooden roof beams survive. In 1944 it was declared a national historic monument, and in 1980 a cultural heritage monument of the city. Devotion is still very much alive: on the 28th of every month the faithful of San Judas Tadeo arrive, and the chapel also venerates the Cristo Olvidado and San Martín de Porres.

Literary memory

The square also carries a literary and cinematic memory. In 1950 Luis Buñuel shot several scenes of "Los Olvidados" here, his raw portrait of childhood on the city's edges: in front of this very chapel El Ojitos is abandoned by his father. José Emilio Pacheco, in his novel "Las batallas en el desierto", captured the dark reputation the neighbourhood held in the first half of the twentieth century, when it was described as a world of its own. There is an even harsher story: in colonial times, according to tradition, condemned thieves were hanged from the local ahuehuetes, after being brought into the temple to commend their souls to the friars.

The visit

You can see it in ten minutes, but it is worth sitting on the edge of the fountain and taking in the contrast: at your back the touristy Roma, before you a village that refused to be absorbed. The square is open-air and freely accessible; to enter the chapel it is best to turn up during a service or on feast days, when it is certain to be open. Getting there: metro Insurgentes (line 1) or the Metrobús stations on avenida Insurgentes, then a few minutes on foot east along calle Puebla until you turn onto Real de Romita. There is no charge. It sits a stone's throw from the bars of Roma, and yet almost no one turns into those alleys.

Getting there

The Plaza de la Romita and the heart of the tiny neighbourhood of La Romita are set inside the colonia Roma Norte, in the Cuauhtemoc borough of Mexico City. The nearest metro stations are Cuauhtemoc and Insurgentes, both on Line 1, from which the square is a walk of just a few minutes through the streets of Roma. The gateway airport is Mexico City's Benito Juarez International Airport (AICM).

Practical guides for Roma

• Where to stay in Roma
• What to see in Roma in 2 days
• Where to eat in Roma
• How to get to Roma