Five places where the Revolution happened. The Mexican Revolution was the first great social upheaval in the Americas in the twentieth century, and it rewrote everything from the idea of justice to the right to vote — and the names of the streets. These five addresses in Mexico City carry it.
Palacio de Lecumberri. In Venustiano Carranza, now the Archivo General de la Nación and once a penitentiary with 804 cells. After the coup of 1913, this is where Victoriano Huerta had President Francisco I. Madero and Vice-President Pino Suárez killed — one of the most violent scenes of the whole conflict. The panopticon building is open as the national archive and can be visited.
Monumento a Álvaro Obregón. In the Parque de la Bombilla, on Avenida Insurgentes in San Ángel, on the spot where Obregón was assassinated in 1928. Inside stands a bronze of the general and the chamber that for decades displayed his severed arm, preserved in formaldehyde — it was finally cremated in 1989.
Avenida División del Norte. One of the busiest arteries in the city, named after Villa's army: peasants, ranch hands and cowboys who for a time changed the political order of northern Mexico.
Cantina La Ópera. In the historic centre, between 5 de Mayo and Filomeno Mata. Porfirio Díaz drank here; when the Revolution came, Zapata and his officers used it to plan. Pancho Villa fired a shot into the ceiling, and the bullet hole is still there, pointed out to every table.
Monumento a la Revolución. Díaz laid the first stone in September 1910 for a sumptuous legislative palace. The Revolution stopped the works, and decades later the architect Carlos Obregón Santacilia reused the half-built steel frame to make a monument to the thing that had interrupted it. It has a viewing deck and a panoramic lift.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
