Hamburgers and Markets

Last Wednesday I went once again to the Historic Center, and my trip included a visit to yet another one of Mexico City's many museums.  This one was the Museum of the Photographic Archives, a museum which I had not been to before.

The museum is located in a structure that was built in the late 16th century.  The façade is covered with plaster design work that is done in the Moorish inspired "mudejar" style of Spain.

  
The archives contain more than two million images of Mexico City that record the development and changes in the city over the last century.  Photos are selected from the archives to display on the two floors of exhibition space.

There are currently two exhibits.  The first one was a rather humorous look at Mexico City residents eating "hamburguesas".

 

The second exhibit deals with Mexico City's public markets.  In the 19th century and early 20th century the markets were often very unsanitary, and many parts of the city had no market buildings at all.  At the beginning of the 1930s there were 35 market buildings in the entire city.  (Remember that this was long before the era of modern supermarkets.)  President Lázaro Cárdenas began a public works project which included the construction of new market buildings.  The Abelardo L. Rodríguez Market, built in 1933, was to be the prototype of the modern facilities.  The boom in the city's population in the 1950s and 60s saw the construction of 160 more public markets.

Here are some of the historic photos of Mexico City's markets...

Outdoor market along the banks of the Viga Canal, 1884

(The canal no longer exists.)

The Alhóndiga Market, circa 1905

Chicken stalls in the San Juan Market, 1928

Fruit vendors in the San Juan Market, 1929

The inauguration of the Abelardo L. Rodríguez Market in 1934

El Chorrito Market, 1955

Fruit vendors at the inauguration of the Monte Athos Market, 1955

Florist at the Insurgentes Market, 1955

Stall selling purses at the inauguration of the Tepito Market, 1957

Stalls in the old Xochimilco Market, 1957

Cheese vendor in the old Beethoven Market, 1958

Porters hauling goods to the Merced Market, circa 1960

The museum is small, and is certainly not at the top of the list of museums that a visitor to the city should see.  But I found it interesting to see these images of Mexico City as it was long before I began to travel here.