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Mexico City, Mexico
Sorry about the centerpiece, thanks for understanding
There are two possible explanations for this photo. The first is the more likely one, that it is a model of a building behind a sidewalk with a Mexican flag. The other, far less likely explanation is that you’re looking at a massive building in a massive empty paved square with a massive, overscaled Mexican flag in the foreground. Of course when presented like this, the far less likely explanation is almost always the right one.
This is Zocalo, the heart of the historic center of Mexico City, and the massive building in the background is the National Palace where the President of Mexico lives, works, and has a great view of that big ass Mexican flag in the center. The plaza was closed off and empty for some unknown reason, but it being empty seems almost like a tradition. Zocalo is Spanish for “plinth,” and in the 1800s a plinth for a monument that was never finished was built here, and decades later (or, I guess, centuries later at this point), that name is still used.
The other major building at Zocalo is Metropolitan Cathedral, which dates back to the 1500s, was built on Aztec ruins and is sinking at an absolutely alarming rate. There are a lot of noticeably crooked buildings in the historic center, this part of the city was built on a filled in lake with not the best foundations. Walking through the Metropolitan Cathedral it is impossible not to notice how severe the sinking has become, something that its scale hides in these photos.
Basic geometry tells us that a square has four sides, and in a rare effort to actually show everything you might see at Zocalo, here are the other two. The first photo is from the south side of the square opposite the Metropolitan Cathedral, and the second photo is from the east side opposite the National Palace. That tower off in the distance is the Latin America Tower on Madero Street, once the tallest building south of the US and the 4th tallest in the world, now it’s not even in the top 30 list of the tallest buildings in Mexico (ok, it’s #31, but still).
Madero Street is more than just home to the #31st tallest tower in Mexico, it’s a wonderful pedestrian street right in the heart of Centro, with new and historic buildings throughout. Often you can tell exactly how historic a building is by how far its sinking (not a good thing). On Madero Street my favorite building was this one, the House of Tiles, built in the 1700s on a street where some of the buildings dated back a few hundred years more. The House of Tiles (Casa de los Azulejos) is well named and hard not to love, although it makes you wonder why more buildings in the historic center didn’t steal their very, very good facade idea.
One of the prettiest interiors in Centro is the Mexico City Post Office, or more accurately the Postal Palace of Mexico City, or more accurately in Spanish, The Palacio de Correos de Mexico. It is free to enter, and a place that I would most definitely have enjoyed sending mail from if I still did that.
Centro may be all about beautiful tiled buildings, post office palaces, big ass Mexican flags and cathedrals that are sinking at an alarming rate, but underneath it all there’s more than just a filled in lake. When the Spanish arrived, there was already an Aztec city here for a few hundred years called Tenochtitlan, which was conquered, razed and renamed Mexico City because (literally) it was easier for the conquerors to pronounce. The Spanish built their new city in the 1500s in an effort to erase all that was once there, but in the early 1900s some of what was buried was found. This is the Tempolo Mayor (or Main Temple), a partially excavated site right near Zocalo behind the Metropolitan Cathedral, a place where you can see some proof of what was lost, just enough to start to imagine a pre conquered Aztec world now buried underneath your feet.
We’re going to finish up our day in Centro at the Monument to the Revolution. Located on the other side of Reforma from Alameda Central, the Palace of Fine Arts, Madero Street and Zocalo, it was built as the first piece of a brand new home for the Mexican Legislature, although (as you can tell) they stopped after finishing the central dome part. What is left is considered the tallest monumental arch in the world, but that seems like a hollow victory all things considered.
There is a glass elevator that goes right up through the center of the arches and takes you up into the dome, although if you want to go any higher you’re going to have to take the steps. One thing that you quickly realize when you arrive in Mexico City is that the elevation there is pretty high. At 7,350 feet high, it makes other “mile high” cities seem like the lowlands. Most of the time it was ok, but when I needed to go up a few consecutive flights, I really started to notice it quick.
One parting shot of the Monument to the Revolution, after the sun had gone down and somehow just as the person’s camera flash went off in front of me. Goodnight Mexico City, see you tomorrow.
