Parque de la Fraternidad

Paseo de Martí [1] runs south from Parque Central [2] three blocks, where it ends at the junction with Avenida Máximo Gómez (Monte). Here rises the Fuente de la India Noble Habana in the middle of the Prado. Erected in 1837, the fountain is surmounted by a Carrara-marble statue of the legendary Indian queen after whom the province is named. In one hand she bears a cornucopia, in the other a shield with the arms of Havana. Four fish at her feet occasionally spout water.

The Parque de la Fraternidad (Friendship Park) was laid out in 1892 on an old military drill square, the Campo de Marte, to commemorate the fourth centennial of Columbus’s discovery of America. By the mid-1850s, it was the site of the city’s train station, terminating the railway that ran along today’s Zanja and Dragones. The current layout by Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier dates from 1928, with a redesign to celebrate the sixth Pan-American Conference, held in Havana [3] that year.

The Árbol de la Fraternidad Americana (the Friendship Tree) was planted at its center on February 24, 1928, to cement goodwill between the nations of the Americas. Busts and statues of outstanding American leaders such as Simón Bolívar and Abraham Lincoln watch over.

The Asociación Cultural Yoruba de Cuba (Prado #615, e/ Dragones y Monte, tel. 07/863-5953, daily 9 a.m.–5 p.m.) has an upstairs Museo de los Orishas (CUC10, students CUC3) dedicated to the orishas of santería.

The constitution for the republic was signed in 1901 in the Teatro Martí (Dragones, esq. Zulueta), one block west of the Prado [1]. It was being restored at time of publication. Around the corner, the Sociedad de la Cruz Roja (Red Cross Society, Zulueta, e/ Muralla y Brasil) is housed in an exquisite classical building.