A few steps from the Vasco de Quiroga cable car stop, in the office of Mayor Álvaro Obregon, in Mexico City, Paso Florentino begins with a slight rise that extends for about 50 metres. Then continue for 100 metres, gradually descending until you reach the corner of Paso Real Street. From this point, the next 120 meters range between approximately 40 and 55 degrees of incline. This section was nicknamed “Devil’s Corner” due to the frequent accidents that cars are exposed to when descending. The latest happened on Wednesday night: a truck transporting soft drinks lost control at the bottom of the hill, and one of its sides collided with House 69 at the aforementioned corner, and the collision caused the tail of the car to hit the wall of another house below, creating a large crater. “I wasn’t there, just my elderly uncles,” says Rodrigo Ramos Rivas, a resident of the house affected by the wall. “The impact of seeing the open house was very powerful.” Some neighbors who witnessed the countless events asked the authorities to find a solution, but this did not come.
There are at least 30 people on the street. Some are members of the mayor’s office and workers clearing rubble, others are neighbors. In the middle of the slope is Passo Viejo, a small street connecting Passo Florentino and Passo Mayor, which also has an alarming incline. There, in Devil’s Corner, is house No. 65. It is yellow with two wide horizontal red lines on the awning and at ground level. Mrs. Josefina Santana Rodriguez lives in this place.
“We asked her to move into our small apartment downstairs, but she doesn’t want to,” says Maria Angelica, one of her daughters. “She has already become a grown woman. She is over 90 years old.” “A neighbor called me last night and asked me to come see my mother because there had been a very bad accident. It was my daughter who showed me the video.” However, Maria Angelica did not go until the next morning, because it was already late, she says.
Some strips prevent vehicles from passing past House 65. Some workers are trying to demolish a section of asphalt where yellow iron barriers placed by Mrs. Santana Rodriguez are installed for protection. Noise stands out. “We installed it there with cement, not like the ones that are installed there,” says Robin, who is also Ms. Santana’s son.
Cross fences are a type of fence on sidewalks. Mrs. Santana feels lucky that the house did not suffer major structural damage. Although part of the canopy and the sidewalk, with its steps that help pedestrians get up and down without the risk of slipping, have been cracked or destroyed.
Despite the thirty people, the tapes blocking the street, and the trucks in which they put the removed debris, cars continue to turn and turn at Paso Viejo. “It can’t be with these people,” says a neighbor with a Chihuahua wrapped in a blanket in the woman’s arms. About seven neighbors gathered, including Robin, who discussed the root of the problem. Someone says that it all started 15 years ago when they changed the asphalt.
Others complain about it and say no, that was 10 years ago; Others, this equals eight. What they agree on is that the sidewalk causes cars to slide. “When it starts raining it gets worse,” says Fernando Ramirez Lopez, a resident of Paso Mayor, the street parallel to the one where the latest accident occurred. He says that about 40 years ago there was a car driving uphill, but it couldn’t go any further, so it backed up to the side of the sidewalk. He added, “The car crushed a girl in half, and they performed 13 surgeries on her hip, but she died,” although no official data was available to this newspaper. The government has forgotten about them, Ramirez Lopez, the mixed martial arts instructor, says resignedly. “I don’t know why, but they don’t care about us. Maybe because we’re working class, but we’re just as important.”
Ramos Rivas is waiting for the insurance company to arrive, which, according to the mayor’s office, will be responsible for repairing the house. At the same time, he installed a large black tarp over the hole. The mayor brought some sheets of plywood, but the old man’s nephew didn’t want them. Ms. Santana’s son, Ruben, says that if he accepts them, they will never come to fix the hole. “Look, take some pictures here so you can see how pretty they left it all,” Robin says sarcastically.