Alameda del Sur

Fotografía: Ricardo Colin/ Secretaría de Cultura CDMX

The Alameda del Sur is a Coyoacán park most famous for a sculpture of two coyotes. These have come to represent the alcaldía and appear also in a traffic circle. Perhaps most well-known of all are those in the Jardín Centenario in the Coyoacán Center. Here, they face rather stiff competition from a number of architectural and sculptural works.

The most prominent of these is the hemicycle of arches flanked by fountains forming a background for the kiosk at the center of the park. This area faces the Miramonte Avenue.

The park’s two equestrian monuments are of particular note. One of Emiliano Zapata depicts the revolutionary hero with a firm hand at his side. Much of the south of Mexico City remains sympathetic to the Zapatista cause, even to this day.

That of José María Morelos, mounted with a scarf covering his head, seems to speak particularly clearly to a 21st century viewership. Cast in bronze, it depicts not so much the swashbuckling Independence hero, but someone far more human, perhaps tired, defiant even in defeat. The monument is the work of Julián Martínez Soto.

The park opened in 1987. It’s home to an open-air theater and the Vicente Guerrero Library. The library is best known for the 2006 mural by Jesús Álvarez Amaya. The total park is about 120,000 square meters. Just west of the Canal Nacional area, the park is a ten-minute walk north of the Galerías Coapa shopping center. The famous Los Coyotes Zoo is just to the north (about 13 minutes walking).