A Freewheeling Mayor

Ebrard is just getting warmed up.

By Christmas 2007, he has unveiled what is billed as the world's largest ice skating rink, all paid for by donations. It's 260 feet long, 131 feet wide -- five times the size of the rink at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. "Like we were in New York or Paris," Ebrard declares.

More than 400,000 people show up in the course of several weekends. Some wait in line seven hours for a chance to trip and tumble and slide along the ice, most strapping on skates for the first time in their lives.

"The rink was the clearest example of creating this illusion," René Cervera, Ebrard's longtime friend and chief of staff, says in an interview.

"We did it, and you saw these rich kids getting out of expensive SUVs and joining the kids who have much less. All of these things that Marcelo is doing -- the beaches, the ice rink -- there's a goal behind them. It's about equality. It's about finding a social equilibrium."

Not Walled Off

It's a weekday afternoon, and Ebrard has sneaked home for lunch. Frying tortillas scent the air. A housekeeper fusses wordlessly in the kitchen.

Ebrard lives in a distinctly nouveau Mexico City pad. The rented two-story penthouse has walls of brushed concrete. The trim is stainless steel. A spiral staircase leads to an upstairs loft where a fur is tossed across a minimalist bed with no headboard. His wife's abstract paintings -- flamboyant slashes of red and blue and black -- line the walls.

It is a far cry from the walled, colonial-style mansions of the Coyoacan neighborhood, where many of Mexico's political elite live, or the even higher walls surrounding the even bigger mansions up on the hillside by Chapultepec Park.

"You'd go to these houses and you'd wonder, 'How does a public servant afford it?' " Ebrard says.

Flipping to English for a moment, he says: "Disgusting. You'd think, 'Something is wrong here.' "

Living here, in the heart of the Hipodromo section of the hip Condesa neighborhood, furthers the mystique Ebrard is trying to develop. He wants to send a message that he is connected to the city, not removed from it.

"If I live in a fortress, how is Mexico ever going to change?" says Ebrard, now upstairs on his deck overlooking the park.