Avenida Presidente Masaryk

This guide follows Avenida Presidente Masaryk in Mexico City's Polanco neighborhood, from the 1985 earthquake that reshaped the area to its rise into one of Latin America's most expensive shopping streets, lined by global fashion houses and car showrooms. It reaches back to the street's 1936 naming for the Czech philosopher-president Tomáš Masaryk, and to the Polish, German, Lebanese and Jewish families who once ran its modest shops at the Pasaje Polanco. Walk it slowly, block by block, to see just how much has changed.