Parque Hundido

Known normally as the Parque Hundido, this sunken park is officially the Luis Gonzaga Urbina Park. Luis G. Urbina was a poet best remembered for having worked in the gap between 19th-century Romanticism and Modernism. The park is home to the largest floral clock in Mexico, and a children’s play area. But it’s most famous for the open-air museum of reproductions of archaeological artifacts.

Once occupied by the Christmas Eve Brick Company (Compañía Ladrillera de la Nochebuena), when the company departed, the clay they’d been making into bricks could not be replaced. The result was something of a great sunken pit. Trees were planted and the lot became known as the Christmas Eve Forest after the former land tenant. The forest was formally made into a park in the 1930s as Avenida Insurgentes was paved and expanded.

By the 197os, several reproductions of archaeological finds had already been placed in the park. Six walking routes were made for peoples of the highlands, the Zapotec, Mayan, Olmec, Totonaca and Huasteca cultures. These were marked with colored lines on the grounds.

Parque Hundido also includes an “audiorama” listening area with a capacity for 141 people. Surrounded by trees and plants, it’s used for playing and listening to recordings of classical music and poetry.

The corner of Avenida de los Insurgentes and Porfirio Díaz Street bears a terrific equestrian statue of Vicente Guerrero, a hero of the War for Mexican Independence. This corner continues to serve as the Sunday meeting place of a number of bicyclists who’ve been gathering here every week for nearly 50 years.