Plaques a bid to preserve capital’s colorful history
MEXICO CITY — Mexico City has existed in one form or another since the Aztecs settled here in 1315, but the colonial city founded by the Spanish with a grid system of streets was born out of the bloody conquest of 1521.
As those streets — among the oldest in the hemisphere — near their 500th birthday, two Mexican writers are trying to peel back the layers of change that have hidden their colorful history.
Three years ago, Hector de Mauleon and his main ally, Rafael Perez Gay, persuaded the city government to erect plaques on downtown street corners to give passersby some description of famous past residents or notable events.
The plaques are made of a decorative colonialstyle pottery known as Talavera and are carefully affixed to oft-historic facades of buildings.
In a metropolis where so much occurred and still happens on the streets — markets, protests, art, performances — it is a way of recovering the city’s history.
So far, they have plans to create 200 of the plaques, but the process of installing them is just starting and may expand to other neighborhoods, like the southern district of Coyoacan, where Spaniard Hernan Cortes set up his government soon after conquering the city.
De Mauleon recalls walking when he was young along the downtown streets with his grandfather.
“He very much liked to take walks and remember what had been there before,” De Mauleon said. “I would accompany him and it was like taking two trips at once: the one we were on at that moment, and the one about things that had happened long ago, or were no longer there.”
But it’s hard if you don’t know what you’re looking for. Starting around 1921 — the 100th anniversary of Mexico’s independence — the government changed most of the old street names.
Many of the streets were named for Latin American countries like Brazil, Chile or Argentina in a sign of the government’s gratitude for them sending representatives to meet embattled President Alvaro Obregon during the centennial, at a time the country was still roiled by periodic uprisings in the wake of Mexico’s bloody 1910-17 revolution.
“The original name of Brazil Street, for example, was ‘the Sepulcher of Santo Domingo.’ That was a beautiful name,” De Mauleon said.
Other streets were renamed to honor fallen heroes of the revolution or dates of key battles. The original names gradually were forgotten.
“When they did that, they severed the collective memory,” De Mauleon said.
Not surprisingly for a city this old, it isn’t the first attempt to put historic markers downtown. In 1928, a group of intellectuals asked authorities for permission to set up plaques — some of which are still visible — often with just the original names of the thoroughfare.
But memories of more than just nomenclature have faded. One planned plaque will mark the location of a hotel that was taken over by U.S. troops during the 1846-48 Mexican-American war.