Mexico City

Streets and Plazas.

The city is laid out with almost un broken regularity, and is compactly built. The newer and better residential sections are on the south-western side; the poorer districts are on the eastern side, nearer the swampy shores of Lake Texcoco. As the name of a street changes with almost every block, according to the old Spanish custom, a list of street names is sometimes mistakenly accepted as the number of con tinuous thoroughfares in the city, so that it has been said that Mexico has 600 to goo streets and alleys.

Several new residential suburbs have been created by cutting up adjacent estates (haciendas) into building lots; many new mod ern streets have been cut, and old dirty squares have been trans formed into neat flower-decked plazas. In 1923 the area of the city was about 15 sq.m., divided into eight sections (cuarteles or denuircaciones), and sub-divided into about i,000 squares. There are over 200 m. of tramways, and tram service, furnished by an English company and managed by English and Canadians, is efficient. Outside the Indian districts of the eastern and south ern outskirts the streets are paved with asphalt or stone, lighted with electricity and gas, and served with a good street railway service. The political and commercial centre of the city is the Plaza Mayor, or Plaza de la Constitucion, on which face the cathedral, national palace, and municipal palace. Grouped about the Plaza de Santo Domingo are the old convent and church of Santo Domingo, the court of the Inquisition, now occupied by the School of Medicine, the offices of the Departamento de Comunicaciones, and the old custom-house (aduana). Close by are the old church of the Jesuits and the school of mechanic arts (artes y oficios) with its large and well-equipped shops. Among other well-known plazas are: Loreto, on which faces the great enclosed market of the city; Guardiola, in the midst of handsome private residences; San Fernando, with its statue of Vincente Guerrero ; and Morelos, with its marble statue of the national hero of that name. The Paseo de la Reforma, the finest avenue of the city, is a broad boulevard extending from the Avenida Jucirez south-west to Chapultepec, a distance of nearly 3 miles. At intervals are circular spaces, called glorietas, with statues (the famous bronze equestrian statue of Charles IV., the magnificent Independence column and the monuments to Colum bus, Cuauhtemoc, the last of the Aztec emperors, and Juarez). Other notable avenues are Bucareli and Juarez, and the Avenida de la Viga, which skirts the canal of that name. The principal

business street runs westward from the Plaza Mayor toward the Alameda, and is known as the Avenida de Francisco I. Ma dero, for five squares, and as Avenida hirez, along the south side of the Alameda to its junction with the Paseo. The Alameda, or public garden, i m. W. of the Plaza Mayor, covers an area of 40 ac., and occupies the site of the old Indian market and place of execution, where occurred the first auto-da-fe in 1574.

Noteworthy Buildings.

The great cathedral stands on or near the site of the Aztec temple (teocalli) destroyed by Cortes in 1521. The foundations were laid in 1573 and the church was finished about 1811. Standing close beside the cathedral is the highly ornamented facade of a smaller church, called El Sagrario Metropolitano. The city has about 6o church edifices, including La Profesa, Loreto, Santa Teresa, Santo Domingo and San Hipo litr. At the time of the secularization of Church properties there were about 120 religious edifices in the city—churches, convents, monasteries, etc., many of which were turned over to secular uses.

The national palace, also on the Plaza Mayor, has a frontage of 675 ft. on the east of the Plaza, and covers a square of 47,840 sq.yd., or nearly io acres. It contains the executive offices of the Government, the Senate chamber, the general archives, na tional museum, observatory and meteorological bureau. The palace occupies the site of the residence of Montezuma, which was destroyed by the Spaniards, and that of Hernando Cortes, which was also destroyed in 1692. It has three entrances on the Plaza, and over its main gateway hangs the "liberty bell" of Mexico, first rung by the humble parish priest, Hidalgo, on the night of Sept. 16, 181o, to call the people of Dolores to arms, and now rung at midnight on each recurring anniversary by the president himself. The national museum, which occupies the east side of the national palace, is rich in Mexican antiquities, among which are the famous "calendar stone," supposed to be of Toltec origin, and the "sacrificial stone" found in the ruins of the great teocalli destroyed by Cortez. Near the cathedral is the monte de piedad, or Government pawnshop, endowed in 1775 by Pedro Romero de Terreros (conde de Regla) with £75,000, and at one time carrying on a regular banking business, including the issue of bank-notes. The national library, which has upwards of 225,00o volumes, occupies the old St. Augustine church.