1244 W. 18th Street, Chicago, IL 60608

On the exterior wall of Benny’s Pizza on 18th Street is a mural depicting the Aztec (Mexica) Sun Stone and the legend of Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl. Iztaccíhuatl was a princess who fell in love with one of her father’s warriors, Popocatépetl. Her father sent Popocatépetl to war hoping he would not return. While Popocatépetl was away, Iztaccíhuatl’s father told her that Popocatépetl had died. She died of grief. Popocatépetl took her body outside of Tenochtitlan, where the two lovers were covered by snow and turned into mountains by the gods. These two volcanoes are in what is today’s Izta-Popo Zoquiapan National Park in Mexico. It is not known if this is an authentic Aztec myth, or a more recent tale, but the mural outside of Benny’s Pizza #2 is a copy of Mexican painter Jesús Helguera’s famed La Leyenda de los Volcanes (1940), which is today part of the National Museum of Mexican Art’s Permanent Collection.

Additional Information

• The Legend of Popocatepetl & Iztaccíhuatl, Inside Mexico, January 2021
• Best of Pilsen 2020, South Side Weekly, November 2020
• In Chicago, the Pilsen neighborhood reflects Mexican flavors, Washington Post, July 2014
• National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicagotlan