The art deco cinema facades are the clue that San Rafael was once a thriving middle-class entertainment district, and the current state — some buildings restored, others crumbling, the neighborhood caught between its historical character and the gentrification wave approaching from neighboring Roma — is the most honest representation of how most of Mexico City actually lives. The cantinas here serve working people, not tourists. The taquerias are priced for Mexican wages.
The streets are grittier than Roma's tree-lined avenues and more interesting for it. The old cinema buildings — the Cine Opera, the Cine Cosmos — are architectural monuments of the 1930s and 1940s, their art deco facades suggesting a glamour that the neighborhood has shed but not forgotten. San Rafael is where the Roma-Condesa gentrification model either stops or continues, and the residents have opinions about which outcome they prefer.
For the visitor willing to walk beyond the polished tourist colonias, San Rafael offers a Mexico City that is unperformed and unpackaged, where a cantina beer costs what a cantina beer should cost and the food is made for the people who live here.