Mexico 2002: Downtown Mexico City

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Mexico City Downtown (4 pictures)

One day we went downtown Mexico City just to poke around a little, with no particular goal in mind. Because Erica had never been, we went to the Torre Latinoamericana (Latin American Tower), Mexico City's original skyscraper and an icon along the lines of the Empire State Building.

The building stands 44 stories high, with the observation deck at 2,422 meters above sea level. Though it is not big by modern-day standards, in its day (the 50s, I believe), the Torre was an engineering marvel. It was a challenge to build such a tall building in a city subject to frequent and violent earthquakes. Since then it has weathered many strong quakes that levelled other buildings, incurring only a few broken windows.

Here's a picture of the building that I borrowed from someone else's website, as we neglected to take our own picture of it. ;-)

A view from the observation deck. Even today, Mexico City does not have nearly as many tall buildings as you might expect in a city of its size and importance.

You can see mountains in the distance; Mexico City sits in a valley surrounded by mountains, including the famous volcanos Popocatepetl (still occasionally active) and Iztaccíhuatl. You can also see the omnipresent cloud of pollution, although in fact we had lovely days the whole time we were in the city.

Me. Hanging on, 'coz man, it's scary up that high. In this picture and the previous one, you might get a sense of just how huge Mexico City is, currently the largest city in the world with 23 million inhabitants. You can see the Zocalo and the Palacio Nacional under my arm.

The somewhat braver Erica.