Look to your right at Morazán Park. It is a sweep of green, anchored by that elegant domed structure in the center. But if you were standing here two hundred years ago, you would not be looking at a park. You would be staring at a swamp.
This area was originally called Plaza La Laguna. It was a stagnant, artificial lake where locals dug up clay to make adobe bricks for their homes. It was useful, but it was a mess. Locals called it a "suampo," a boggy depression that collected rainwater and sewage, becoming a breeding ground for disease.
This did not sit well with the new masters of the city.
Enter the Liberal Oligarchy. These were the coffee barons, the wealthy elite who turned Costa Rica’s golden bean into dynastic power and political control. They looked at San José and didn't want a muddy colonial village; they wanted a "civilized" capital that mirrored the grand boulevards of Europe. To them, a muddy hole in the ground was an embarrassment.
So, starting in 1877, the government drained the lagoon to sanitize the city and, essentially, to hide the mud. But the elites didn't just terraform the land; they tried to engineer the public memory.
In 1887, the government decided to name this new plaza after General Francisco Morazán. This was... controversial. Morazán was a Honduran caudillo-a military strongman-who had tried to force a Central American Union and was actually executed by firing squad right nearby in Central Park back in 1842.
Imagine naming a park after a foreign general your own country executed! The public was baffled. They wanted to honor local heroes. But the government offered no explanation. They issued a decree, ignored the newspaper editorials screaming in protest, and forced the name through. It was a classic move by the oligarchy: impose their will, ignore the locals, and move on.
Now, look closely at that domed structure. That is the Templo de la Música, or Temple of Music.
It looks like it belongs in France because it does. It is a near-exact replica of the Temple of Love and Music at the Palace of Versailles. You cannot get more Euro-centric than that.
The story of its construction is wild. In late 1920, the city realized the Christmas festivals were three weeks away. They had demolished the old wooden kiosk but hadn't built a replacement. Panic set in. They hired architect José Francisco Salazar, who pulled off a miracle. He organized crews to work eighteen-hour shifts, pouring reinforced concrete in a frenzy. Against all odds, they finished it by Christmas Eve.
Over time, this park became a cluttered altar to political power. You have statues of Simon Bolivar, the Argentine Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, and former president Julio Acosta. They even had a Japanese garden here once, complete with a red bridge and pagoda, but it was bulldozed in the nineties to make room for... another statue of a politician.
This park was the elite’s attempt to pave over the swampy, chaotic reality of the tropics with concrete and imported marble. They wanted a stage for their European fantasies.
Today, however, the script has flipped. It is a playground for everyone, filled with festivals and music, far more democratic than its founders ever intended.
Let’s leave the park behind and head toward our next stop, the Luis Ollé Building, where we will see where this merchant class actually did business.
