Cedohu 2020

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It is documented that until 1886, Agustin Arreola Street was known as “Ruiz-Amao Street” and on that year its name was changed to Puerto Street, just like La Espina Alley, which was assigned the name of Mijares Alley; at the intersection of these streets the corners of the blocks that before 1886 was registered in the cadastre as “F”, “M” and “E”, and since the cadastral reform of that year they became numbers 9, 13 and 27, nowadays correspond to blocks 43, 48 and 42 respectively.
 

    On the way to the former Mijares Alley, we come across a building located on the old Puerto Street and Progreso Street (Agustín Arriola and 21 de Agosto). It was for decades the warehouse of the La Perla de La Paz store. It was also used during Christmas time for the sale of clothes and toys, after the fire in 2006, the store La Perla de La Paz was installed permanently. The facade's antique archi-tecture remains almost intact with arches facing Puerto Street, formerly established by ten semicir-cular arches framed with a protruding jamb and an ornate cornice-shaped finish. The corner of the building is curved, it has an attached column with the projecting base at the same level as the plinth that continues along with the building while the neoclassical capital stands out from the continuous cornice along the building's facades with topping guardrail.
 

    It is considered that in the middle of the 19th century, through La Espina Alley (Mijares Alley), almost on the corner with “Ruiz-Amao” Street (Puerto Street), there was located the Municipal House of the City Council of La Paz, made of adobe walls and stone with a roof (brick and lime), as docu-mented by a plan from 1857 found in the Manuel Orozco y Berra National Map Library. At that time, the City Council of La Paz was just over 25 years old, since before 1831 it depended on the City Council of San Antonio, which had been established in 1828.
 

     At the beginning of the 20th century, in the corner where the municipal house used to be, lived the family of Don José Anastacio Duarte Mejía, he was known for his excellent photographs of the urban landscape of the old city of La Paz and the emblematic bar, La Mexicana, very frequented by the people from La Paz. While on Puerto Street in front of the Mijares Alley there are still two buildings built of quarry stone that are very similar separated from each other by a semicircular arch, one of them has decorative stone, and in the other one the stone is covered by a rough plaster made out of lime and sand. The building made of decorative stone is now a bar that has covered its facade with beer ad banners so that its formal architecture is almost unable to see: two carved stone pilasters with a projected base and a neoclassical style capital that reaches the top of the parapet, also made of decorative carved stone. This building has three rectangular French windows framed by jambs and protruding stone enclosures with a topping guardrail carved in cornice-shape; it high-lights the absence of a continuous cornice; while the topping guardrail from the other building has an ornamental-shaped cornice on which four square-based pyramids rise with an ornate sphere as the topping.
 

     Currently on the eastern sidewalk of the Mijares Alley almost on the corner with Agustín Arriola where there are three buildings with contemporary architecture, one of them with three levels has oriental style architecture, with a bar on the ground floor, exactly on the corner where the bar called “La Mexicana” used to be located, and previously a large residence with arches in five French windows with semicircular arches followed by another building with rectangular French windows; while on the western sidewalk there is a large vacant lot, but since the beginning of the 20th century the section of the emblematic store La Perla de La Paz was in that corner where groceries for people of La Paz were principally sold, which were transported mainly in animal-drawn vehicles still until the middle of the 20th century, when cars already existed. We can tell that as a grocery store it was not the only one, La Paz had grocery stores very close to La Perla de La Paz such as "La Perseverancia" owned by Conrado de La Peña, "La Fama" owned by Manuel Wong, "La Popular from Los Arámburo” and “La Morena” owned by the Cotas, as well as small stores in the upper part of downtown, in El Esterito and El Manglito.
 

     When the buildings of La Perla de La Paz caught fire in 2006, the old neoclassical architecture of the facades was exposed, which was the former grocery store with windows; they were inter-vened when modernizing the store and the continuous cornice can be seen in antique photos. We have, for example, in the grocery store in the old Mijares Alley a wide large height door with a semicircular arch that at the same time was the symmetry axis of the facade through the Alley with four French windows on each side with a semicircular arch of less width and height; The semicircular arch was decorated in the shape of an archivolt with moldings that create a series of concentric arches adorning the arch. This was supported by discreet rounded imposts; while the curved corner was an attached column with a base at the height of the continuous plinth that was along with the building and with a neoclassical style capital that protrudes from the continuous cornice and the topping guardrail.
 

     Former Puerto Street and former Mijares Alley had for an exceptionally long time during the 19th and 20th centuries intense mobility due to the location of the main commercial activity and one of the emblematic stores in the city: old Casa Ruffo (La Perla de La Paz).
 

La Paz, Baja California Sur, May 5, 2020.
 

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URBAN HISTORY DOCUMENTATION CENTER (CEDOHU)

Walking down Agustín Arriola street towards Mijares Alley, Master Alma Castro Rivera and architect Gilberto Piñeda Bañuelos han-dling Degree in Education students from Autonomous University of Baja California Sur (UABCS) brought by Professor Alejandro Telechea Cienfuegos. Photo: María del Carmen Trujillo Arriola, Sunday, September 3, 2017.

Master Alma Castro Rivera attending the Municipal DIF (Integral Development of the Family) Personnel of the La Paz City Council in charge of Lourdes Rodríguez Jordán Photo: Franco Orozco, Sunday, June 2, 2019.