Palacio de Iturbide

This guide to Palacio de Iturbide in Mexico City follows Agustin de Iturbide, who lived here for eighteen months after Mexico's independence and stepped onto the balcony to accept the crown of the short-lived empire. It traces how the palace became a hotel by the 1850s, then a billiard hall and cafeteria after an 1899 renovation by architect Emilio Donde, drawing in opera singers and bullfighters like Carolina Civili and Luis Mazzantini. Look up at the stone atlantes straining to hold the balconies above the arcade.