Parque Central

After the city wall was demolished in the area in 1863, where the Parque Central stands today, the place stayed as an empty place along the Alameda de Isabel II for a long time until 1875, when the statue of the Spanish Queen Isabel II was erected. The construction of a park around the statue was completed in 1877. Initially, the park was pretty much bare of trees, but mostly paved, and it had the current dimensions. The statue of Isabel II was removed from its pedestal during the US intervention in Cuba in 1899. In 1902, on the occasion of the declaration of the Republic and on the order of the Mayor Pedro Perfecto Pascual Lacoste, a statue made of molten calamine, representing the freedom, was placed on the same pedestal , but soon the cyclone brought it down in ruins.

On the other hand, a new committee was constituted in Guanabacoa in 1900 to build a statue of José Martí in the new park, as José Martí had received the highest vote on a popular survey that had been conducted by the Cuban pictorial El Fígaro to determine whose statue should be erected in that park. The committee determined that the expense of the statue would be borne by the donations of the public and each donation would not exceed 25 cents. Two years later the Cuban sculptor José Vilalta de Saavedra was entrusted with the construction of the monument. José Vilalta de Saavedra was also the designer of the monument, erected to pay tribute to the eight medical students that were shot in 1871, the sculptural set Las Virtudes (the Virtues) of the Cemetery of Columbus in Havana, the monument of Francisco de Albear and several busts of important protagonists of Cuban history.

The first stone of the monument was placed by the General Maxímo Gomez, the Major General of the Liberation Army, in 1904 and the statue of José Martí, the first statue of the hero in Cuba, was unveiled by the President Tomás Estrada Palma in the park that was adorned with national colors, in 1905. At dawn the city woke up with a salvo of 21 shots of the cannons from the Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabaña, announcing the opening ceremony of the monument. The solemn ceremony was attended also by Doña Leonor Pérez, the mother of the hero, her sister Amelia and the widow Carmen Zayas-Bazán. Since then, the old square Isabel II began to be called by the inhabitants of the capital the Parque Central, most likely due its central location on the Paseo de Martí.

Juana de Verona, the sister of the Bernabé de Varona, the General of the Liberation Army known as Bembeta, placed a golden nail with the inscription “La Hermana de Bembata (Bembeta’s Sister)” inside the pedestal, along with the lead box that contained several copies of the pictorial El Fígaro, the Cuban newspapers La Discusión and the Diario de la Marina y Patria, and some coins.

In 1959 trees, fountains and sculptures were incorporated in the park.

The Parque Central is surrounded by significant buildings, such as the Gran Teatro de La Habana and the building devoted to international art of the Museo de Bellas Artes (Centro Asturiano de la Habana)); the hotels, such as Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski, Plaza, Parque Central, Inglaterra, Telégrafo; and the shopping center, known as Manzana de Gómez.

The Parque Central can be divided in three sections: the esplanade with the statue of José Martí in the center, and the green areas at both sides of the esplanade.

Right in the center of the esplanade stands the statue of José Martí, made of white marble of Carrera. It is erected on the site that was occupied by the marble statue of Isabel II until 1899. The statue is 2.75 meters high. Its total height with the pedestal reaches about 8 meters. It was carved in the studio of the Cuban sculptor José Vilalta de Saavedra in Rome that did not charge a penny for his work. Furthermore, the amount collected by the commission did not cover the amount that was necessary for the expenses (4.500 $), so the sculptor had to complete it from his own resources. The image of José Martí looks like making again a speech to the Cubans of all times. The date of his death is carved below the reliefs of the Phrygian cap and the coat of arms of Cuba. The pedestal is surrounded by bas-reliefs of human figures that consist of the members of the Liberation Army, as well as the public itself.

In the green areas small squares are connected with each other by a series of paths that intersect each other. The small squares are adorned by centenarian trees, fountains and small sculptures and bordered by stone benches. The statue of José Martí is encircled by 28 royal palms that signify his birthday on January 28. There are also eight coffin-shaped stonework, representing the eight medical students shot by the Spanish on November 27, 1871.

The park, once hosted the city’s first book fairs, now hosts the artwork and book sales, photo exhibitions, a tourist transport bus stop and that of horse drawn carts. For decades it has been the home to the La Esquina Calinete (Hot Corner), a space where passionate baseball fans laughed, shouted and discussed the statistics, the chances of their teams playing the final and the habits of their favorite players. The section of the Agromonte street that is neighboring to the Parque Central is the parking area of vintage cars. The Parque Central is a great city crossroads and a meeting point for Cubans; it is always alive, as thousands of habaneros cross it every day, disappearing in all directions.