Roma Condesa
Condesa is a neighborhood in the central borough of Cuauhtémoc in Mexico City. Nowadays the zone known as Condesa consists of three colonias: Condesa, Hipódromo and Hipódromo-Condesa. It is well known for its Art Deco architecture. It was developed at the turn of the 20th century (1902) in what was once the Condesa racetrack. The actual racetrack became a pair of concentric elliptical streets called Amsterdam and Avenida México. The neighborhood got its name from the grounds of the old Hacienda of the Countess of Miravalle on which it was built. The hacienda's old house still exists as the Russian embassy in Mexico. The neighborhood is also notable for its restaurants, bars and sidewalk cafés.
The Condesa and Roma district of Mexico City is a residential and restaurant area on both sides of Insurgentes avenue (Condesa on the west side, Roma on the east side) between Viaducto Miguel Alemán in the south and Avenida Chapultepec in the north. It's a large area with mostly Art Deco architecture, large parks, and a relaxed atmosphere. La Condesa, an area consisting of several colonias on the west side of Avenida Insurgentes, was at one time an extremely fashionable part of Mexico City, particularly during the Golden Age of Mexican cinema in the 1940s and 1950s when it was home to many film stars. Col. Roma, on the other side of Insurgentes, has less greenery and is more urbanized. Its going through a period of very fast real estate development at the moment, as prices and popularity are increasing.
La Condesa has experienced a building boom in the late 1990s and 2000s, resulting in many new modernist buildings, carrying on the tradition of exceptional architecture that includes fine examples of Art Deco and Streamline Moderne.