THE NEW AVENIDA REVOLUCIÓN
Avenida Revolución, one of the oldest streets in Tijuana, has long catered to outsiders.
From The San Diego Union Tribue
Written by Sandra Dibble July 20, 2012
TIJUANA - As darkness fell over Avenida Revolución one night this month, Pasaje Rodríguez was filled with light. Along the covered alley, a guitarist
played, a painter celebrated his new mural and small groups sipped wine inside galleries displaying pieces by local artists.
With its colorful curio shops, dozens of tourist-oriented pharmacies and raucous bar scene just across the border from San Diego, the 10-block stretch
called Avenida Revolución long defined Tijuana for many U.S. visitors. But as American tourism there has plummeted in recent years, a new Avenida
Revolución is emerging - one of art galleries, restaurants, cafes, bookstores and bars that cater to a different kind of clientele: Tijuana residents
reclaiming a long-forgotten piece of their city.
On any weekday, the city's well-to-do can be seen greeting each other at the relaunched Caesar's Restaurant near Calle Quinta. On weekend nights,
crowds of young and hip Tijuanenses gather at the bars on Calle Sexta. Near Calle Séptima is a newly opened pedicab stand, and a bike-rental business
has been set up inside a converted taco shop.
Festivals and special events regularly bring out crowds to the street, including last weekend's Baja Beer Festival and Festival Multi-Arte. The latter
was a three-day celebration of Avenida Revolución, its arts passages and surrounding streets, with activities that included dance, music and
performance art.
"There's something happening for sure. A lot of people are feeling this vibe of downtown," said Julián Plascencia, a member of the Tijuana restaurant
family that owns Caesar's. Since taking over the eatery in July 2010, the Plascencias have launched three other establishments within a block: a tapas
restaurant, cafe and tequila bar.
Plascencia and other restaurateurs are collaborating with cultural activists such as Max Mejía of Queremos Tijuana, which is promoting an arts
district. "This is a way of offering an alternative to a street that began dying," said Mejia, whose group organized Festival Multi-Arte with backing
from the city government, Tijuana's restaurant chamber and Colegio de la Frontera Norte.
The festival was also the launching point for Plaza Revolución, the newest of three arts passages that have opened in the past two years. The indoor
plaza's shuttered tourist shops are being replaced with a cafe that offers organic food, two fashion designers, a dance collective and a theater
group. These new occupants are not paying much rent - $150 a month for a single stall - but that's good enough for now, said Alejandro Santillán,
whose family owns the property.
"The idea is not to make money; the idea is to take over spaces so they're not empty," said Santillán, 42, whose uncle and father still operate curio
stores on the street. "This is being done from the heart."
The past decade has not been a good one for tourism in Baja California, and no part of the state has been as profoundly impacted as this traditional
tourist strip. Longer border waits resulting from tighter U.S. security after 9/11, drug-related violence in Mexico and the global economic crisis all
took their toll on the street. Today, the merchants group Ceturmex reports that close to 40 percent of 733 locales remain vacant.
"I saw the boom, but I also saw its downfall, of being here and not seeing a single person walk down Avenida Revolución," said Miguel Buenrostro, 28.
Buenrostro is currently part of the group Reactivando Espacios, which tries to find new uses for the city's vacant spaces. That includes Pasaje Gómez,
the biggest of the passages along Avenida Revolución.
The energy there on a recent Saturday was palpable, as music played and a largely young crowd mingled inside for Tijuana's first Art Walk. "We want to
build the foundations for a ... reinvented Tijuana that doesn't have that international reputation for violence, of an exaggerated night life,"
Buenrostro said.
The passages are big on dreams, but their future is uncertain. Rodolfo Argote, a planner for the city, said over the long term, decisions about the
street's future hinge on the creation of a fideicomiso - akin to a business improvement district - for Tijuana's downtown area. The group would
consist of property owners, agencies, transportation groups and others with direct interest in the area's progress.
The challenge will be how to keep people coming to all three arts passages, which includes hosting and promoting events that can draw not only
Mexicans but also tourists. Some longtime merchants on the street complain that the passages have done little to increase traffic at their shops, but
many are applauding their presence.
Among those who do is Luis Montijo Rodriguez, whose family owns Pasaje Rodríguez. The covered alley is a piece of old Tijuana, with tile floors that
date to 1924. Once part of the Foreign Club Hotel and Casino, the passage was later converted to tourist shops that for decades did booming business.
But in recent years, it sat empty and abandoned.
With support from Ceturmex, artists approached Montijo about temporarily setting up in the passage for the first Festival Multi-Arte in 2009. Then
they seized on the idea of opening studios and galleries there, and Montijo agreed to rent his spaces starting at $100 a month.
The artists' presence "could be ephemeral," Montijo said. "The growth depends on them. We know that they don't have money, but my vision is that one
day this could be a famous strip and be a launching pad for famous artists from Tijuana."
On a recent Friday, Montijo joined a group of longtime Tijuanenses mingling at the Montmartre Gallery for the opening of Armida "Massy" Ramos' exhibit
of carbon sketches. "We have to keep evolving," said Armida de la Madrid Alcantara, 85, the artist's mother, who found the Pasaje much-changed since
she last visited six decades ago.
Down the alley, artist Antonio Escalante greeted visitors at his gallery, Circulo Art Exchange. "It was filthy, a pigsty, it took us five months to
clean it up," he recalled. "This was a phenomenon that happened because it was a necessity for this city."
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.”
—Mark Twain
\"La vida es dura, el corazon es puro, y cantamos hasta la madrugada.” (Life is hard, the heart is pure and we sing until dawn.)
—Kirsty MacColl, Mambo de la Luna
\"Alea iacta est.\"
—Julius Caesar
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