Rosario Castellanos Park / Monument

The Rosario Castellanos Park is centered around the monument honoring the same Mexican writer. The park, or sub-park, takes up up the westernmost part of Chapultepec Section II. It’s just about directly south of Campo Marte and the National Auditorium. Like much of the second section of of Chapultepec, it’s seldom visited by more than a handful of people.

• Rosario Alicia Castellanos Figueroa (1925-1974) was an important writer, journalist, and diplomat. She is broadly considered one of Mexico’s most important 20th-century writers. A pioneer of feminism, she was born in Mexico City but moved at a very young age to Comitán in Chiapas. Her formative years were spent there, and a museum there honors her legacy. In addition to a couple of libraries in Mexico City, a public university, the Universidad Rosario Castellanos opened in 2019 and was also named in her honor.

The monument at the center of the park was restored in 2023. The 1976 work of Veracruz-born sculptor María Lagunes, the work depicts a “forum” of five marble steles around a bronze portrait bust of Castellanos. Some city residents will recall the older name of the park, Jardín de la Amistad. The Friendship Garden had been dedicated in 1980 but as it was increasingly