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A food stand with hand-painted art (left), and after it was repainted by Cuauhtemoc officials (right). 

A food stand with hand-painted art (left), and after it was repainted by Cuauhtemoc officials (right). 

Photographer: Hugo Mendoza

CityLab
Culture

The Disappearing Street Vendor Art of Mexico City

A local official has ordered hand-painted signs on almost 1,500 taco stands erased, stripping the color from some of the city’s most iconic central neighborhoods.

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David, a boy who had Down syndrome, died of Covid-19 last year. But he was remembered through a painted sign with a cartoon image and his name on his family’s taco stand in Mexico City. That is, until the local government had it erased.

The city’s Cuauhtemoc borough in April ordered the signs taken off of 1,493 street food stands, replacing them all with the same pattern of white paint and a blue-gray stripe, a large sticker or stencil with the local government’s logo, and a new slogan: “Cuauhtemoc Borough is Your Home.”

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