Drainage?

Wasn't Centro once full of mangroves and wetland?

Not exactly. Our family home used to be the edge of town. The school Vicente Guerrero was on the bank of a lagoon that crossed in front of where the second pedestrian footbridge now is at a place that used to be known as El Vado and went all the way to where the colonia Darío Galeana begins. From El Vado a coconut grove stretched northeastward to where the airport used to be from the Bertha Von Glümer school to Infonavit La Parota, the housing project next to La Comer. My father-in-law had one of the nicest fruit tree orchards near the old airport that was expropriated and nowadays is a skating park and some ugly strip mall-type buildings. Cinco de Mayo street used to be part of the lagoon during the rainy season. The artisans market was never intended to be permanent. I don't believe any of the old palm trees remain from the old coconut grove or huerta, but some of my father-in-law's mango trees still remain in the skating park known as Los Mangos. You don't know what you've got till its gone!