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Old Portal de Mercaderes in the historic center of Mexico City was and is the west side of the main plaza (otherwise known as the "Zócalo"). This side of the plaza has been occupied by commercial structures since the Spanish Conquest of Mexico in 1521. Today the west side of the square is dominated by two sets of buildings with Madero Street dividing them as it runs west from the Zocalo to the Palace of Bellas Artes. The buildings on the north side of Madero is occupied by offices on the upper floors and shops at ground level. The southside buildings are dominated on the ground floor by fine jewelry stores, marking the beginning of the "Centro Joyero Zocalo." This center extends west for two block engulfing Palma Street between Madero and 16 de Septiembre streets. Most of the upper floors of the buildings here are occupied by rooms associated with the Hotel de Ciudad de Mexico and the Hotel Majestic.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title= Majestic Hotel )〕 ==Old Portal de Mercaderes== The first colonial building was built on this side of the square by Melchor Davila, dedicated to selling food and other merchandise. From this building stretched street vendors west and as far north as Santo Domingo.〔 Much of the land here was granted to Don Rodrigo de Albornoz, Count of Santiago, secretary to King Carlos V and named the accountant for New Spain.〔 In 1524, the city council passed an ordinance stating that the owners of property fronting the Zocalo could build covered archways in front of their establishments on city land and rent the space to merchants. The reason for this ordinance was that the Zocalo still had severe flooding problems at this time. These covered archways would provide an alternative to the open Zocalo, especially during the rainy season. Much, but not all, of the west side of the Zocalo was owned by Albornoz, including the portion at the southwest corner of the plaza, near the city council building. It was nearly impossible to build covered archways here because of a gulley running very close to the facade of the houses here. Albornoz made an arrangement with the city; the city would install better drainage for this corner of the Zocalo, and Albornoz would build the covered archways for the entire west side of the plaza. The task was completed in 1529.〔 The resulting archway ran almost the entire side of the Zocalo, covering what is now Madero and 16 de Septiembre Streets. Through all of the colonial period into the post-Independence period, the west side was known as the Portal de Mercaderes. In 1629, massive flooding in the Zocalo required almost all of the portals surrounding the plaza to be rebuilt. The Portal was again reconstructed in the mid 18th century by one of Albornoz heirs.〔 During the 17th century, this area mostly sold silk and brocade cloth as well as fruit and medicinal herbs. In the 19th century, hat shops established themselves here, and other vendors attached shelving onto the arches' columns to sell toys. At night, the archway would sell candy to those taking walks the area.〔 In the mid nineteenth century, the Portal was divided into two with the opening of Plateros street, now Madero. This essentially ended the Portal being considered a single entity. From the beginning of the colonial period, the Zocalo and the area west has been an area covered in vendors’ stalls.〔 The building of the covered archways did not work to regulate commercial activity here. Even though the arches were built by property owners, the city still owned the land on which the arches stood. This led to disputes over maintenance and over who should control the vendors. Taking advantage of the ambiguous situation, many peddlers set up shop, sometimes permanently, all over the archways, into the street and into the Zocalo itself.〔 This would be a constant issue for both the Portal and the Zocalo area in general, with the occasional attempt to clear out ambulatory vendors and other unregulated selling. However, these sellers would reappear again as the effort to keep them out waned, a problem what would repeat itself again and again over the history of the downtown.〔 This problem was again tackled in the 1990s as part of an effort to revitalize the historic center of Mexico City. Despite much initial resistance, this area has been free of street peddlers since that time, with the west side of the Zocalo now dominated by jewelry shops that are located in the first floor of the buildings.〔 Most of the buildings now on the west side were built over the last century or so. Starting in the late 1950s, the facades of these privately owned buildings facing the Zocalo began to be regularized to a neocolonial style, using tezontle (and blood red volcanic rock) and cantera (a greyish-white stone)to match the Federal District Buildings and the National Palace.〔 On the portion south of Madero Street, what appears to be one building is actually two. They are mostly occupied by two major hotels, the former Hotel Majestic (now Best Western) and the Gran Hotel de la Ciudad de Mexico (now Howard Johnson). Both buildings date from the late 19th and early 20th centuries and both hotels tend to still be called by their original names.〔〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Old Portal de Mercaderes (Mexico City)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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