La Merced barrio, Mexico City

La Merced is a barrio or a neighborhood of Mexico City defined by its socioeconomics and history rather than by an official designation. It extends over the southeast of the historic center of Mexico City and is one of the oldest sections of the city, established over 700 years ago by the Mexica as part of the founding of Tenochtitlan. Over its history the area was associated with commerce, first as a major docking area for boats bringing goods to Tenochtitlan/Mexico City on Lake Texcoco, later via canals as the lake was slowly drained. In the latter 19th century, the La Merced market was established in the area replacing the massive La Merced monastery which was almost completely destroyed in the 1860s. This market was established to centralize the marketing of foodstuffs for the city on one area. The first La Merced market was built in 1890 and then replaced by the current building in 1957, one of the largest traditional Mexican markets in Mexico City. In the 1980s, the wholesale function of this market was taken over by the newly constructed Centro de Abasto in the south of the city, with the barrio then going into economic and social decline. Although there have been efforts to revitalize the area and the La Merced market remains important, the area has problems with poverty, population loss and prostitution.

La Merced is a “barrio” an unofficial city division, located in the southeast corner of the historic center of Mexico City. Although somewhat fluid, its borders are generally considered to be formed by the streets of Corregiadora, Zavala and Candelaria in the north, Fray Servando Teresa de Mier in the south, Congreso de la Unión to the east and José María Pino Suárez to the west. It covers a territory of 106 city blocks or 121 hectares, accounting for about thirteen and a half percent of the city’s historic center. It is part of the declared World Heritage site, with about forty percent of the area’s historic buildings.

Officially, the area is divided among two of the boroughs of the Federal District of Mexico City, Cuauhtémoc and Venustiano Carranza. In addition, it is divided into “colonias” or official neighborhoods called Merced Balbuena (in Venustiano Carranza) and Colonia Centro (in Cuauhtémoc) .

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Wikipedia