Porfiriato CDMX Tour

CDMX

Porfiriato

For 31 years, at the turn of the XX century, Porfirio Diaz ruled the country; and he used his power and influence to turn Mexico City into Paris by creating new public buildings, monuments and neighborhoods for the new European industrial families — and today thanks to the conservation of same historical mansions you can travel in time to the Porfiriato for a day.

Time period: 1876-1911

Movie/book: El Baile de los 41 (2020)/Porfirio Díaz - Su Vida y Su Tiempo by Carlos Tello Díaz

Soundtrack: Alondra de La Parra-Mi Alma Mexicana album

Fashion: white and black outfit, blazer or long coat, plus jewelry

Budget:

: Plano General de la Ciudad de México; CDMX, 1858

: Plano de la Ciudad de México; CDMX, 1907

This walking tour would take you through the streets of: La Roma Norte, the neighborhood where the elite used to built their mansions; plus La Alameda, where many public buildings got built to make the city more elegant. The area is characterized by: art nouveau and beaux-arts mansions, tree lined streets and the iconic Paseo de la Reforma with its monuments. Mexico after its independence went through a rough period of political instability that allowed the American and French invasions, which ended up being detrimental for the enlightened “city of palaces”. Thanks to Napoleon, Mexico had its short lived second empire of Maximiliano de Habsburgo from 1864-67 who got killed by the forces of Benito Juarez reestablishing the republic. Years latter, the general Porfirio Díaz (who fought against the French) organized a coup d’etat against the president Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada because he was going for reelections. The irony of it all is that Porfirio will become a dictator himself for 30 years getting reelected 6 times — and he created the The Gran Dieta Simbólica in 1890 to act as a central governing body for Freemasonry across the Mexican Republic, declaring himself as the Grand Master. He governed the country under an “order and progress” policy inviting European investors into the desolated nation; Mexico had a population of around 7 million vs the European countries who were in the 30s millions. British miners, German chemists and French retailers migrated to the newly mansions built in the neighborhoods around the Paseo de la Emperatriz: Colonia Juarez, Cuahtemoc and Roma Norte. This street was an urban corridor between the city center and the Castillo de Chapultepec (a fortress where the the emperor and layer Porfirio used to lived), inspired in the Champs Elysees in Paris now known as Paseo de La Reforma. During the Porfiriato it turned into the “millionaires row” of Mexico City with mansions on both sides (few still survive). The historic center got modernized with new Beaux-Arts public buildings like: the postal office, the opera house Palacio de Bellas Artes, and monuments like: El Angel de la Independencia to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the independence and the monument to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Benito Juárez. Meanwhile entrepreneurs opened up luxury hotels and department stores with cutting edge technology like telephones, elevators and electric lamps. The city and the country itself got industrialized by European developers with railroads, mines and factories, but sadly being built on native land that Benito Juarez seized from the locals years before. Inequality rose thanks to the racial tendencies of the government fueling resentment among the peasant class and sparking the bloody Mexican Revolution — putting to an end to the Mexican Belle Epoque. The conspiracies might say that the first regime to be taken down by the USA (through the masonic nepo-baby Francisco I. Madero) was the one of the feminist Porfirio who let women be masons and didn’t require the bible to be at the altar. The tour suggests having breakfast at the historic Hotel Geneve plus checking out some mansions in the morning; then a Porfiriato beaux-arts walking tour, El MUNAL plus a coffee break during the afternoon; and to finish the day shopping in El Palacio de Hierro and dinner at the roof top of Gran Hotel Ciudad de Mexico.