During 1967, a year clearly marked by the restlessness of the decade, a certain area of the Juarez neighborhood was named the Pink Zone; neither red nor white, but certainly Bohemian and recently renovated to appease the tastes of modern youth. Its elegant hideaways inherited the glamour of bygone times, and it seemed almost as if, in honor of the names of its streets, it had been transplanted from Olde Europe.

Taking advantage of the Paseo de la Reforma avenue, Insurgentes avenue, and the Paseo de Bucareli, the Americana neighborhood was laid out in the shape of an elongated triangle whose sides exchanged the traditional north-south orientation for that of a diagonal crisscross pattern.

A few years later, in an effort to contain the spiralling increase in the price of land lots for building, which in the case of the Paseo de la Reforma avenue had risen from 50 cents in 1872 to 25 pesos in 1903, the Americana neighborhood changed its name to that of Juarez and Cuauhtemoc. This fact, however, was of no particular concern to its inhabitants who had recently discovered a new way to spend their leisure time thanks to the innovation of electric light (a shining representative of modern times), which allowed them to develop novel habits of late night revelry.

In 1951 a succession of whirlwind changes was initiated which would eventually transform the placid residential enclave into a center of business, commercial, social and tourist activity.

The decade of the 60´s witnessed the inauguration of bookstores and art galleries under the patronage of artists and intellectuals such as Jose Luis Cuevas, Guadalupe Amor, Manuel Felguerez and Lilia Carillo who were proponents of the new international and intimist styles. Both the general public and international visitors acknowledged the cosmopolitan attraction of the Pink Zone, which encouraged the construction of hotels and the opening of restaurants, handicraft markets, antiques stores and night clubs, not all of which operated within the boundaries of good taste.

Today the Pink Zone continues to undergo changes: new boutiques, bars and discotheques have expanded the choices available to those patrons who populate the area in search of entertainment or survival. Thus, beggars, discotheque hawkers, yuppies, foreign tourists, nocturnal rodents, revellers, druggies, ladies out shopping and business men blend together at any time of the day or night with the muted colors of the cobble stones, walls and buildings in their quest for the much desired Vie en Rose.