City on the Water

Mexico City is built on the site where the Aztecs founded their capital of Tenochtitlan.  The city, located in a high mountain basin, was built on an island in the middle of a shallow, saline lake.  Actually, there were a number of interconnected lakes in the valley.  The largest of them was Lake Texcoco.  Beginning in colonial times efforts were made to drain off the lakes in order to control flooding.  Today there is only a remnant of that lake system.  Nevertheless, even though Mexico City is landlocked and 200 miles from the ocean, its beginnings as a city on an island in a lake have influenced a large part of its history.

Currently in the courtyard tucked between the Latin American Tower and the Church of San Francisco there is an exhibit of historic images and photographs that portray the city on the water.

In this 1683 painting of Mexico City you can see Lake Texcoco in the background.

Tenochtitlan was the Venice of the Americas with canals forming many of his streets.  If you look closely at the painting you can see that many of those canals still existed in colonial times.

In fact, some of those canals survived into the 19th and early 20th centuries.

In this 1869 lithograph you can see the Canal de la Viga which connected the center of the city with Xochimilco in the south.  The first steam boat in Mexico City plied its waters.

This early 20th century photograph shows that canals were still used as thoroughfares for transporting goods.

This painting from 1874 shows that a sizeable portion of Lake Texcoco still survived.

This painting from the 1860s shows Chapultepec Castle.  Today, the castle is in the heart of the city, but in those days it was far off in the rural outskirts.  In the painting Mexico City is in the distance.  You can also see that there were still wetlands between Chapultepec and the city.  You can also see the aqueduct that carried water from the fresh-water springs at Chapultepec into the city.  Remnants of that aqueduct can still be seen along busy Chapultepec Avenue.

That aqueduct ended at a colonial era fountain in the city known as "Salto de Agua".  The original fountain is now in the National Museum of the Viceroyalty.  An exact replica now stands in its place in the middle of multi-laned Arcos de Belén Avenue.

The draining of Lake Texcoco did not end the problem of periodic floods.  This photo from 1865 shows a flooded street in the center of the city.  Entrepreneurial locals would build wooden footbridges across the streets and charge people 6 cents to cross them.

Even today, heavy downpours during the rainy season can turn some streets into impassable lakes.  It almost seems as if the ancient Lake Texcoco wants to reassert itself.