Parque Fundidora

Parque Fundidora is a 144-hectare public park on the east side of central Monterrey, built on the grounds of the Compañía Fundidora de Fierro y Acero de Monterrey, the steel company that shaped the city for most of the 20th century. About 80 hectares are green space, with two lakes, 23 fountains and a 3.4 km cycle path, and the rest is a landscape of rusting blast furnaces, smokestacks and brick mill buildings. The park is open every day from 6:00 to 22:00, entry is free, and it draws millions of visits a year.

The company was founded on May 5, 1900, by Vicente Ferrara, León Signoret, Eugenio Kelly and Antonio Basagoiti, and it built the first blast furnace in Latin America on this site. The state took control in 1977, and the plant went bankrupt in 1986. After about two years of abandonment, a presidential decree of March 1988 handed the land to the Nuevo León government for public use. Rather than being demolished, the mill was opened gradually as a park; in 2001 it was declared a Museo de Sitio de Arqueología Industrial, an open-air museum of industrial archaeology, and sixteen historic structures still stand.

The centerpiece is Horno 3, a 70-meter blast furnace that in 2007 became the Museo del Acero, with galleries on the history of the mill and on steel, a show recreating a furnace in operation, and a walk to the top with views over the city to the Cerro de la Silla; it is said to be the only blast furnace in the world open to the public. The Nave Lewis, a former mill hall, is an exhibition center, and the Centro de las Artes in old industrial buildings holds the Cineteca, the Fototeca and galleries and hosts the Monterrey International Film Festival. Around the edges are the Cintermex convention center, the Arena Monterrey and the Auditorio Banamex, and the park is the venue for big festivals such as Pa'l Norte. From 2001 to 2006 its roads were the circuit of the Monterrey Grand Prix. On the west side the Paseo Santa Lucía canal ends inside the park, so you can arrive by boat from the Macroplaza.