The “rebirth” of Mazatlán’s historic center was preceded by a slow, cancerous “death.” Fine old buildings were abandoned, roofs fell in and jungle grew from broken windows. Worse, many were razed to build ugly modern commercial buildings, many of which were abandoned in turn as the blight spread. The current interest in rebuilding the area has been aided to a great extent by foreigners rebuilding old homes-and they, in turn, benefit from the resurgence of the area’s vitality. This month’s article focuses on a factor that is at once a great hope for the area…and a major headache for individuals and businesses trying to revive Old Mazatlán. In 1998 the federal government gave INAH-the National Institute of Anthropology-a preservation mandate over a large section of the old downtown, an area extending from just north of Zaragoza to the estuary waters and east from the Olas Altas Malecón to the Pacifico Brewery. Good news because INAH’s administration is designed to preserve the valuable historic nature of the area, which has been violated in the past. Bad news because the agency’s ability to block construction permits has become a major stumbling block to people who want to restore old buildings. Everyone in Mazatlán wants preservation but it is hard to talk five minutes to anybody remodeling an Old Town building without hearing them curse INAH for monkey-wrenching their restoration. Part of the problem is that INAH was never meant to oversee housing. It was originally created to watchdog ancient sites such as Mayan pyramids and Aztec temples. Their manifesto was developed for places like Machu Pichu and Chichen Itza. But they tend to apply the same sort of sacred thinking to ordinary urban houses. For years INAH existed as a sinecure agency staffed by over-educated nephews, a situation unfortunately typical under the PRI machine. President Vicente Fox, in decreeing that agencies not actually doing anything would get downsized or eliminated, set INAH in motion to accomplish real world goals-mostly the policing of urban historic zones. The current attitude of INAH people tends to be highly idealistic, academic, and abstract: quite the opposite of practical zoning concerns such as safety, livability, and attractiveness to investors. Which can be a pain for somebody just trying to turn an eighty year-old ruin into an attractive home. The business end of INAH, which prods and chafes so many remodelers, is the inspection team comprised of Mario Martinez and Josefina Sandoval, both architects, neither of whom is an historian or a local. Sandoval has a reputation among architects and owners for aggressiveness, for “suggestions” and academic idealism that often verge on rudeness. Mario, the senior inspector, is better liked and generally conceded to be dedicated and incorruptible, though considered a naïve purist…an impression he does not deny. The INAH reign has created some classic legal surrealism. The new owner of the Loro de Oro B&B encountered fierce, rude opposition to building a backyard classically-styled cottage not even visible from the street-the Loro de Oro is a slabby “Frank Lloyd Wrong” building circa 1963. The owner was told that his unsupported double arch was an abortion not found anywhere in Mazatlán, though identical arches can be seen in front of the Belmar hotel. A much worse scenario unfolded on Cerro Viggia where an old, low-income Mexican woman tried to replace her crumbling clay tile roof and rotting wood rafters with a cement slab to keep the rain out of her front room. Even though there is only one other tiled roof on the street (an abandoned ruin), INAH stopped her job for violating the historic look of the street. For two months now she has had rain-and several burglaries-in her roofless living room, since she can’t afford the exotic materials and increased labor costs to comply. “What do they care about my roof?” she complains. “Do they think gringo tourists are going to come up this crummy street?” Ironically, the American next door did a slab roof, not to mention vinyl windows and sliding glass doors, without problems. Sometimes INAH can be circumvented. One American artist got the second floor she was being denied (on a street with several other two-story houses) by building it back, and with a slanted front wall so that it wasn’t visible from the street. Others build as requested, then later tear it out and do as they wish. One foreigner was denied a garage only to watch a Mexican couple across the street tear down an old building and replace it with a modern monster…with garage. A classic example of INAH goals clashing with the needs and esthetic desires of reconstruction is their violent distaste for grooving walls to accommodate electrical wires, then plastering and painting over the concealed conduits. The grooves, Martinez asserts, destroy small portions of the original bricks and mortar, which must be preserved at all costs. The INAH ideal of restoration can be seen in Ambrosia restaurant, the exposedmetal electrical conduits a shocking lapse of their elegant restoration. Even uglier, and less historic, are the wires around the INAH offices in the Archeological Museum which are unsheathed plastic cords stapled to plaster. Another INAH “triumph” involves antipathy to modern paint and preference for cal, a primitive whitewash. The Military Hospital followed their “suggestion” to use cal and their restored façade is currently a fading, splotchy advertisement for anachronistic correctness. INAH is serious about the paint thing. They actually hand out paint chips telling people what colors they can paint their houses. Only earth colors and pastels, if you please-in a country where people have always doted on bright colored houses. They have also tried to require use of nineteenth century materials, such as the use of cactus glue and mud mortar, or old low-fired bricks that are no longer available. Many of these abuses, which cause ridiculous