Avenida Francisco Sosa

The street was named after a man who lived here, in house number thirty-eight, for more than forty years. Francisco de Paula Sosa Escalante was a journalist, historian, and biographer. In his youth, he founded a magazine in Mérida and published articles against the local administration. For these publications, he was sent to the prison-fortress of San Juan de Ulúa. Sosa risked his freedom through the very thing he earned his living from: newspaper writing. After his release, he moved to the capital, continued writing, and entered government service.

The road was then called Calle Real de Santa Catarina. It was laid out in the sixteenth century as a route between the center of Coyoacán and San Ángel. Here, Sosa acquired a house and set up a study. In the evenings, writers, historians, and journalists came to see him; acquaintances called these gatherings the “Mexican Athens.” Behind closed gates, they discussed books, history, and new publications.

Sosa held the post of political prefect of Coyoacán—the title given to the head of the district administration. In eighteen ninety, he published the first separate historical account of Coyoacán. The place he governed and where he lived became the subject of his book. Before that, the past of the old village had to be assembled from scattered chronicles and documents; now Coyoacán had its own printed history.

Sosa died in his house on February ninth, nineteen twenty-five. Later, the former Calle Real de Santa Catarina was named in his honor. House No. 38 has survived, and the old route to San Ángel still passes by it. The name on the street signs begins with one specific address, where a former prisoner wrote the history of the place that had become his home.