Barrio de Jalatlaco, Oaxaca

[bixaorellana]

Sunday a friend and I strolled over to the Jalatlaco neighborhood, claimed by its inhabitants to be the oldest barrio in Oaxaca. There was a Zapotec town here when the invading forces of Francisco Orozco arrived on Christmas day 1521, so that claim may well be valid.

On the map you can see my neighborhood, Colonia Figueroa, at upper left; the main square -- the zócalo -- at lower left; and the main city cemetery, shown several times on anyport in Day of the Dead threads, is that green square stuck on to the lower right edge of barrio Jalatlaco ~

The center of the barrio is its church of San Matías Apóstol, dedicated in 1700, although the present facade is from a 1713 renovation ~

Our objective was the Fiesta Cultural Italiana, "Un Giorno en Italia". This turned out to be un giorno molto low-key, at least while we were there.
Never mind, the Italian sausage panini were lovely and it was nice to sit in this beautiful patio while enjoying some gelato.
The festival grounds lack exoticism due to the flags of Italy and Mexico using the same colors ~





Italian person ~

We ran into another friend while there who, as we'd wondered what was the original use of the very large patio, informed us that Jalatlaco had been a leather-working area and this large space had probably been a tannery. Looking that up later, I found that indeed there had been a thriving tanning industry in the barrio in the late 19th through the middle of the 20th century.

We'd had all the excitement we could handle, so I grabbed a last snap of some good wall art & we left ~

[bixaorellana]

My friend grabbed a cab, but I wanted to stroll and take pictures in the almost uncannily quiet and deserted streets ~

[bixaorellana]

[bixaorellana]

A little bit of yellow brick road pointing me homeward ~



And that's that ~

[lagatta]

Was there a stream? Usually tanneries are established where there is a river or stream. But they were very polluting, and some of the streams were later covered (I think of the Bièvre in Paris, but it is far from the only example).

You must have loved the mural with all those ACTIVE little dogs.

As for the Italian Day, it does look calm, but those jams and those wines certainly look good. The Drapeau des patriotes, the tricolour of the 1837 uprising in Lower Canada (le Bas-Canada, now southern Québec) is also green, white and red, horizontal stripes - it is identical to the Hungarian flag, but upside-down.

[Deleted]

This looks like a very pleasant little excursion with ideal weather (yes, I know your weather is often ideal, Bixa).

When you see how much quality art can be found on the walls of most of the cities of the world (at least in the countries where you don't get shot for doing it), it really makes it clear how many artists are out there just looking for a way to display their talent.

[bixaorellana]

Feb 22, 2017 13:00:49 GMT lagatta said:

Was there a stream? Usually tanneries are established where there is a river or stream.

Very good, LaGatta, and of course you're right! If you'll find Calzada de la República on the map in the OP (on the western limit of the barrio) you can see by its squiggliness that it's covering the Rio Jalalatco hidden underneath. And those stones in the street are all river stones.

Yes, I did love that mural and its pink wall. The neighborhood is lovely, still very working class with nice low buildings and a neighborly feel.

I chatted with the organizer of the festival today -- he is from Bari.

Thanks, Kerouac. I did feel you needed to be there, although you probably would have ferreted out more wall art than I did. Great point about wall art as an index to artistic impulse. Really, out of all that I saw that day, I think my favorite are the cartoon lines painted on the sagging corrugated tin fence -- just a great leap from seeing something and then making it happen.

[lagatta]

We have several lost rivers in Montréal (duh, we're an island)... One of the most important was Rivière St-Pierre, which flowed from Mont-Royal through an old neighbourhood in the southwest called St-Henri (yes, we have a hell of a lot of Saints Everything) where there were many tanneries. It too has been covered over, but these rivers return with a vengeance. Where I live we had to have major structural work done at our housing co-op due to an underground stream.

At least my useless historical studies are good for some things...

[Deleted]

The tannery river in Paris (the Bièvre) was covered over as well in 1912. There is talk of uncovering part of it, but I have no idea where there is a place to do that.

[lagatta]

I thought I'd made that clear in my post mentioning it, but I guess my wording was off. I don't know how they could uncover it with all the things built over it in the century since its disappearance. www.bievre.org/

[Deleted]

Sorry, Lagatta, I had not seen your post mentioning the Bièvre.

[bixaorellana]

History is never useless! I don't know much about French history, but have heard of the Bièvre & its attendant tanneries.

I've never been able to visualize how a river gets covered up. The Atoyac, a major river here, has been diverted, something else I find hard to understand. I used to live on its former bed -- not a nice place to be during an earthquake.

Kerouac and Htmb know firsthand the annoyances of the water situation in Oaxaca: revista.drclas.harvard.edu/book/water-oaxaca-mexico

Here is another way to uncover the river:
OAXACA, Oax. March 20, 2016. - With colors and the imagination of children and adults, this Sunday the Jalatlaco River that crossed the Calzada de la República of the city of Oaxaca was revived and returned as part of this traditional neighborhood. The visual artist Jesús Iberri Rosales indicated that the purpose is to remember how this avenue would be if the tributary had not been intubated, but mainly to make society aware of water care. During the morning of Sunday, about 200 people came to participate in the pictorial intervention called "Píntame un Río". source, with pictures