The "real" town of Parián is in Oaxaca State, and there Lowry saw for the last time his friend Juan Fernando Márquez, the original of Juan Cerillo, who (like the Consul) would be shot in a bar-room quarrel. But the name, in addition to "Paros" (a Greek isle famed for its white marble), was that of the the market-place in Mexico City; it was sacked in an uprising in 1828 and closed in 1843, but Lowry would have known of it because in the lobby of the Hotel Canada there was (and is) a large picture of the city centre, "del Palacio Nacional, de la Catedral, del Parián, y estatua de Carlos IV."

The Hotel Canada, Cinco de Mayo 47, was Lowry's usual residence in Mexico City, and the scene of his final break with Jan Gabrial in December 1937. In Dark as the Grave it is called the "Cornada", intimating cuckoldry, and described as 'a nasty little hotel" (90) with cheap plumbing.

… you could change climates, and if you cared to think so, in the crossing of a highway, three civilizations. – UTV, 10.

The Plaza de las Tres Culturas, in the Tlatelolco neighbourhood of Mexico City, incorporates the remains of Aztec temples (foreground), the Santiago de Tlatelolco Catholic church, and a modern housing complex (background).

The square connects the pre-Columbian, Spanish colonial and independent 'mestizo' histories of Mexico.