Lagunilla station

Neighbouring stations

• BLine BGaribaldi / Lagunilla ← Lagunilla → Tepito

The story behind the icon

The station icon is of a wild duck.

It is the name of a famous and popular group of markets within the old part of Mexico City.

In pre-Hispanic times an inlet of the waters of the surrounding lake formed an irregularly shaped little lagoon, or lagunilla, on whose banks stood the barrios of Nonoalco, Tolquechiuca, Acozac, Coahuatlán and Atezquepan.

In 1521, when Cortés destroyed the city, the plan or grid was laid out over the existing canals and barrios, leaving La Lagunilla outside as a district set aside for the dwellings of the indigenous people, as was all the rest of the outer area, while the centre was reserved exclusively for the Spanish.

Many decades passed before that site gradually dried out, as the level of the surrounding waters fell, until it became a marshy area.

After the urban transformation that followed the Reform Laws — the opening of new streets, the widening of existing ones through the religious convents and the filling in of countless canals — that zone remained a wretched and filthy slum, reduced by around 1872 to the small square and street of La Lagunilla.

The market of Santa Catarina, commonly called La Lagunilla, was replaced by a set of four buildings: the first for seeds, vegetables, fruit, fish and poultry, on Calle Libertad and Callejón de San Camilito; the second for clothing and fabrics, framed by the streets of Rayón, Allende and Ecuador and the Callejón de la Vaquita; the third for furniture and sundries, on the streets of Allende, Honduras and Paraguay; and the fourth, which makes up the area of stalls, on Libertad and Comonfort.