Hardened Artery

Construction gangs cut down stately, 40-foot trees along Mexico City's famed Paseo de la Reforma. Bulldozers ripped at the broad islands on which the trees stood, and cranes swung weathered statues from street-side pedestals. Cuauhtemoc himself, last of the Aztec princes, was hauled from his sandstone eminence near the Paseo's intersection with Avenida Insurgentes. In his place, concrete mixers poured new pavements.

The Paseo had been laid out by the Emperor Maximilian in 1865 as a shortcut from downtown Mexico to his palace atop Chapultepec, three miles away. It was called the Calzada del Emperador (Emperor's Highway) until the empire's fall. Republicans renamed it Paseo de la Reforma in honor of their laws separating church & state. Later, the rich lined it with great mansions; France's best landscape designer was imported to make it look like the Champs Elysees.

On either side, the four-lane Paseo was flanked by tree-shaded islands that separated it from one-way lanes beyond. Students studied on the islands' marble benches. On summer nights, romantic couples often had to wait their turn for bench space. Nearby stood statues of 19th Century Mexican heroes. When placed there in the '90s, they represented the most notable sons of the Mexican states, but time gradually rubbed out their fame.

Time also changed the Paseo. Flashy new hotels rose behind the Paseo's stately trees. Wealthy families moved west to Chapultepec Heights. Automobile agencies hung their neon signs in the old mansion windows. Finally, city engineers decided that the 19th Century Paseo should become a modern six-lane concrete ribbon.

Mexicans took it hard. They protested when workmen dragged Cuauhtemoc from his perch, moved in on the Statue of Columbus (see cut). Their resentment grew when they learned that the Paseo would have a two-foot strip down the middle, planted to nopal and cactus. "These are the only places where pedestrians may now take refuge," screamed El Universal, "and they fill it with cactus!"

The planners were unmoved. While Cuauhtemoc and the 34 heroes sat forlornly at the curbs, the cement mixers ground on. Mexicans began to call their beloved Paseo the "hardened artery."

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