by Pancho Shiell
Mexico City has amazed me ever since I was a child. I went there for the first time with my parents and their best friends and neighbors, Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan) and his gorgeous wife, “my auntie Allene”. My first impressions are still vivid. I remember landing at the Mexico City airport and, as we stepped out of the plane, Johnny gave his Tarzan call. Several convertibles drove up to the ramp as we walked down from the airplane. Some cars were carrying mariachis playing fabulously, and others were for us to sit on top of the back seat in parade formation. Then they drove us around the city, and I loved the way everybody was waving and cheering, so friendly, happy and welcoming. Immediately I knew that Mexico City was much more exciting than Beverly Hills!
We stayed in the then swanky Hotel del Prado across from the Alamada Park, and I still have the impression of that huge mural in the lobby, Diego Rivera’s Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park. (The Prado was irreparably damaged by the 1985 earthquake, but the mural was spared and moved across the street into the park where it is housed in the Museo Mural Diego Rivera.)
My parents and Johnny and Allene always took me everywhere, even to nightclubs. I still treasure my memories of the Villafontana, an exquisite supper club with waterfalls and dozens of violinists playing enchanting music.
In the Palacio de Bellas Artes I was awestruck looking upward in the immense marble halls -- things appear even bigger from a child’s perspective -- and I was startled by those huge murals staring at me (I later studied about Rivera, Orozco and Siquieros, with the advantage of a much appreciated head start).
One day we went to the pyramids of Teotihuacan -- speaking of big -- and climbed to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun, an appropriate place for Johnny to give his Tarzan call. Recently, I was reminiscing with Allene and she reminded me of a lovely Sunday when we went to Xochimilco and had lunch on a trajinera boat among the “floating flower gardens”. Mariachis were playing, and people were always waving and smiling at us. I thought all this was normal behavior in Mexico, but of course Johnny’s presence had something to do with it. (He always said he was loved more in Mexico than in any other country in the world).
Xochimilco, with its canals, boats and floating gardens and orchards, is a small untouched area that remains the same as the entire city was originally, before the Spaniards arrived in 1521 and changed everything. It was previously called Tenochtitlan, the flourishing capital of the Aztec Empire. When Hernan Cortes and his band of conquistadors first saw the dazzling metropolis, looking down from the pass between the volcanoes Popocatepetl and Ixtaccihuatl, their chronicler said it reminded them of Venice, only more beautiful. The volcanoes, usually snowcapped, are amazing to see at dawn, sparkling at well over 17,000 feet above sea level. We could proudly pronounce and spell their names, Allene showed me how Ixtaccihuatl resembled the silhouette of a sleeping lady, and she and Johnny had a white standard poodle named “Popo”.
That Sunday afternoon, we also enjoyed a totally different aspect and era of Mexico City, a tradition ever since New Spain was founded here by Cortes -- we went to the bullfights.
We continued to Acapulco, where Johnny and Allene, along with some of the so-called “Hollywood Gang”, owned the then glamorous Los Flamingos Hotel. We made subsequent trips over the years, always having a royal time in “Mexico” (as Mexico City is simply called by Mexicans).
During high school, I returned to spend a summer, enrolled in a course at the Ciudad Universitaria to learn Spanish. I liked the feeling of the campus atmosphere and imposing architecture, especially the landmark Central Library building covered entirely by the “world’s largest mosaic mural” by genius artist Juan O’Gorman. But I only went there a few times because there was so much else to do in the city. I lived in a family’s house for students just off Reforma and near the Zona Rosa which was truly elegant. I was impressed by the fact that shop windows were more meticulous than those on Rodeo Drive, and the clothes on display had absolutely no wrinkles. I discovered fabulous restaurants, fun cantinas, peñas and piano bars, and frequented picturesque Coyoacan (visiting, of course, Diego and Frida’s and Trotsky’s houses). I even went to agricultural villages out in the rustic countryside, yet still inside the city limits of the Distrito Federal, such as Milpa Alta, known for its delicious mole, and San Pedro Actopan, famed for a hundred flavors of ice cream made from avocado, cheese, mole, and every kind of fruit imaginable.
I revisited Bellas Artes and other places I saw when I was younger, and I gradually began to understand more about this complex city with layers of history. I delved into the colonial Centro Histórico, which has recently undergone a brilliant refurbishing. (Both the Historic Center of Mexico City and Xochimilco were proclaimed UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1987.). I still gaze in wonder at Diego Rivera’s murals in the National Palace, especially El Gran Tenochtitlan which is mesmerizing. It dramatizes the arrival and brutal conquest by the Spaniards, their ethnic fusion with the Aztecs, and the transformation of Tenochtitlan into one of the most European cities in the Americas. (The Spaniards were Europe’s most ethnically mixed people – Iberian, Visigoth, Ancient Roman, Celtic, Jewish, Arab – so their blending with the Aztecs, as well as various different indigenous cultures in other regions of Mexico, formed one of the richest gene pools anywhere).
It is astonishing that the scenes Diego Rivera painted from his imagination on the walls of the National Palace actually happened just outside. It also awesome to be inside the Museum of the Templo Mayor, a block away, viewing displays of Aztec artifacts and sculptures of their gods, then look out the big museum window, right there at the Templo Mayor excavation site where these precious objects were found. You also see the dramatic remains of the pyramids that once rose to the height of the adjacent Cathedral towers! It all gets even more surrealistic in the evenings: while the Cathedral’s chiming bells beckon Mexicans to mass, you also hear the drums and smell the incense of the Aztec danzantes right there in the Zócalo (the immense main square of Mexico City) passionately reenacting the ceremonial dances of their ancestors. To take it even further, during Christmas season the entire square is specatularly illuminated with Christian scenes and biblical icons. Yet, as a National Palace guard once told me, beneath the pavement of the Zócalo lay thousands of “pagan” Aztec souls who sometimes get agitated and stir around at night.
During the entire month of September, the Zócalo is also illuminated but with a different theme: the grand celebration of Mexican Independence Day, September 16. On the night of September 15th at 11 p.m., the President of Mexico gives the traditional cry of independence, el grito, from the presidential balcony of the National Palace while he simultaneously rings the overhead Campana de Dolores, the same bell that the hero Hidalgo rang in 1810 proclaiming Mexico’s independence.
Years ago, I had the honor of being invited to the Presidential chambers and the Salón de las Banderas (Hall of the Flags) for el grito. Just before the ceremony I happened to wander out unknowingly onto the presidential balcony to get some air. Wow! I was looking out over the vast Zócalo, the second largest main square in the world, packed with hundreds of thousands of rejoicing Mexicans seeming to gaze up at me. What an unexpected thrill! At a subsequent year’s festivities, I was standing in the square at ground level squeezed among the throngs, this time under the balcony looking up at the President while he gave el grito chanting !Víva México! That was a different kind of thrill.
Year after year, I have been privileged to marvel at the spectacular lights in the Zócalo during both the Christmas and Independence holidays. And a monthly must-see phenomenon in the Zócalo in the light of the full moon. On Sundays there are major concerts in the Zócalo, and the annual Festival Cultural del Centro Histórico in the spring rivals any festival in Europe.
I never feel alone in Mexico City because I have hundreds of friends in shops, restaurants, cantinas and newsstands; even organ grinders greet me with a smile. There are 110,000 taxis in the city, and on unrelated two occasions I have experienced the uncanny coincidences of getting the same drivers who remembered me and even where they took me. The taxis are typically the user-friendly VW bugs, and drivers invariably share with me some enlightening anecdotes about their city, or some wisdom about life in general. The capitalinos (inhabitants of Mexico City) have an characteristic sharp memory for people and details about them; they are highly tuned-in and connected. They love to laugh and never cease to tickle me with their lightening-wit albures (playful puns and double entendres) exercising their innate mental agility.
Because I am based in New York, I am impressed with the efficiency and quietness of Mexico City's subway. It moves five million passengers daily and ranks among the best of the world. In fact, Mexico City (simply called "Mexico") is a place of superlatives. It is the highest city on the North American continent with an altitude of 7,349 feet which, for some reason, has an exhilarating effect on me, even when I swim laps (Weissmuller style, of course). It is the oldest city in the Americas, founded by the Aztecs in 1325. With 26 million inhabitants, it is the most populous city in the world. It has more museums than any city and, after New York, London and Toronto, has more theaters. As far as eateries, Mexico must run a close second to Madrid (which, by the way, is where I ended up going to school and learning Spanish).
In addition to major restorations in the Centro Histórico, the Alameda Park has been refurbished, and there are mounted police wearing traditional charro outfits. The sidewalks along the entire Paseo de la Reforma have been repaved in sand-color quarry stone and lined with rose gardens and statuary. New hotels are opening, and restaurants, nightlife and the art and cultural scenes are burgeoning. As Madrid was to Europe in the 1980s, Mexico City is presently on the verge of blossoming into the most vibrant and exciting city on its continent.
I am grateful for my early and unusual “family travel” introduction to Mexico City, for my vivid memories, and for friends and ongoing experiences the city has given me ever since.
One can develop a special bond and endearment with a city as I have with Mexico.
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