Two Very Old Buildings

 When I was downtown this past week, I poked my nose into two very old buildings in the city's "Centro Histórico".

The first is a house located on Seminario Street just across from the Cathedral.  I had never been inside the building, but the doors were open, so I went inside.

A plaque inside the doorway tells some of the building's history.  It was built in 1640, making it one of the oldest surviving houses in Mexico City.  By 1988 the building was abandoned and in a state of ruin, as seen in one of the photos hanging by the entrance.

In that year the building was purchased by Mónica Baptista who, along with her husband, spent more than twenty years restoring the structure to its former glory.

Today it is owned by Mónica's son and daughter-in-law.  They have opened the building as a center for the arts and also rent out the space for events and conferences.  There are also three suites upstairs (very expensive, I am sure) for visitors seeking a unique alternative to a traditional hotel.  On the ground floor there is also a small shop which offers high-quality Mexican handicrafts for sale.

Just a block away is another historic house that is located across the pedestrian street from the National Palace.

Although this is not the original building that stood on this site, it was here that the first printing press in the Americas was set up in 1539.  The building was purchased and restored by the Autonomous Metropolitan University in 1989, and today it serves as a continuing education center.  During the restoration process, an Aztec sculpture of a serpent's head was discovered beneath the floor.  It is on display near the entrance.

In one room is a replica of the printing press.  (They had just taken down an "ofrenda" for the Day of the Dead, and workers were putting the replica back in place.)

Nearly a century before the first printing press was brought to the English colonies, a press from the Spanish publishing house of Juan Cromberger was brought here upon the request of Mexico City's first archbishop.  For ten years the print shop operated here.  It produced many religious tracts for the conversion of the indigenous people, but it was also here that the first book, the first textbook, the first newspaper, and the first dictionary in the New World were published.