Understand
La Condesa, an area consisting of several colonias on the west side of Avenida Insurgentes, was at one time an extremely fashionable part of Mexico City, particularly during the Golden Age of Mexican cinema in the 1940s and 1950s when it was home to many film stars. Mexico City's first Bauhaus-type apartment building, the Edificio Basurto, was built in 1938 and was popular amongst entertainment industry figures. After the 1985 earthquake which hit the area hard, many of its residents moved on to areas like Polanco and Lomas de Chapultepec and many of the Art Deco and midcentury modern homes and apartments became abandoned. Due to the high availability of housing stock and fascinating architecture, the area was rediscovered and became immensely popular with artists, musicians and other creative people in the mid 90s, resulting in rising real estate costs and an abundance of hip restaurants, cafes, and bars. Today La Condesa is still worth a visit, although many of the pioneers have moved on to other neighbouring areas. One such area is Col. Roma, on the opposite side of Insurgentes from Condesa, which is less developed, but has a similar flavor. Although Colonia Roma was developed at the same time as Condesa, it traditionally was more middle class in population, with a large number of European immigrants who had fled the Spanish Civil War and the Holocaust, and despite the damage of the 1985 earthquake kept this character until recently.
The area of Condesa closest to Insurgentes is focused around Avenida Amsterdam, a large, oval street that used to be the track of the area's horse racetrack thus the name for this colonia, Hipódromo Condesa. Av. Amsterdam is long and slightly curving, making it easy to lose your direction while going along it. It's dotted with small roundabouts where other streets cross it, and a large part of the area inside it is taken up by the Parque México, with an open-air amphitheatre on one end, and small lanes amongst large trees and fountains on the other. There are several good restaurants and bars in this area, but it's the most residential, and least urban, of the Condesa.
The other part of Condesa is Col. Condesa, a bit further away from Insurgentes, on the other side of Av. Nuevo León. This is much more heavily developed, and has an impressive assortment of bars, restaurants, and sidewalk cafes.
Col. Roma, on the other side of Insurgentes, has less greenery and is more urbanized. Its going through a period of very fast real estate development at the moment, as prices and popularity are increasing. There are new bars and restaurants popping up every week, and it's well worth a visit. Roma also has two small malls, one by Insurgentes, the Plaza Insurgentes, and another on the east side of the area, by Avenida Cuauhtémoc, the Plaza Cuauhtémoc. Both have stores and Cinemex movie theaters.
La Condesa has experienced a building boom in the late 1990s and 2000s, resulting in many new modernist buildings, carrying on the tradition of exceptional architecture that includes fine examples of Art Deco and Streamline Moderne.
