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Plaza de Santo Domingo Review

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Plaza de Santo Domingo

Address: Bounded by República de Cuba, República de Brasil, República de Venezuela, and Palma, Col. Centro, Mexico City
Phone: No phone

Category: Squares
Location: Centro Histórico and Alameda Central

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Fodor's Review:

The Aztec emperor Cuauhtémoc built a palace here, where heretics were later burned at the stake during the Spanish Inquisition. The plaza was the intellectual hub of the city during the colonial era. Today its most charming feature is the Portal de los Evangelistas,whose arcades are filled with scribes at old-fashioned typewriters filling in official forms, formatting theses, printing invitations, or composing letters. In the past, people who didn't know how to write would come here for a little help. While there are still those, there are also the people who desire to keep traditions alive. At Christmastime especially, people come to have greeting cards personalized—with their greeting on the inside and return address printed on the envelopes.

The gloomy-looking Palacio de la Escuela de Medicina Mexicana (República de Brasil 33, at República de Venezuela. 55/5529-7543. www.palaciomedicina.unam.mx/. Free. Daily 9-6), once the headquarters for the Inquisition, is catercorner to the lively portal. Founded by the Catholic Church in 1571 and closed by government decree in 1820, it was a medical school for many years. Now it serves as a fascinating museum portraying the history of medicine in this country. The 18th-century baroque Santo Domingo church, slightly north of the portal, is all that remains of the first Dominican convent in New Spain. The convent building was demolished in 1861 under the Reform laws that forced clerics to turn over all religious buildings not used for worship to the government.