I didn’t expect that Mexico City would be as green as it was. While there are very few parks in large stretches of the city, not surprisingly the older and more affluent parts of the city are relatively blessed – particularly the west side colonia (or districts) that edge the crown jewel of CDMX: Bosque de Chapultepec:
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From Chapultepec Castle, the canopy has a lush painterly quality:
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Us northerners cannot help but compare it to New York’s Central Park, though it’s considerably bigger (at 1,695 acres, the largest in Latin America) and vastly older -“held as special since the pre-Columbian era, when it became a retreat for Aztec rulers.”
Another comparison to Central Park has also been made: its ruinous decline, to the point where by the 1980s sections of it were simply closed off. “By 2005, the park was filled with trees in poor condition, scum in the lakes and fountains and mountains of trash. From that year until 2010, the park was closed section by section for restoration and rehabilitation projects” – today amazing those who had only unpleasant memories.
Another contentious issue: there were over 3,000 peddlers with few regulations or norms. After renovations, permits for selling were strictly limited … “However, a number still manage to sell illegally, keeping watch for authorities and even communicating among themselves with radios. At the entrances to the park, where the rules are not in places, vendors still crowd, partially blocking entrances and even covering signs to the most direct entrances so that visitors need to wade through labyrinths of vendors to find an entrance.” The voices of hawkers rise above the canopy – a sound so unfamiliar to my ears that from a distance I could not tell from where it came nor what its source or meaning might be.
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All great parks are reflections of their cultures.
