Murder in Miramar’s Zero St. Park

Irina Pino

HAVANA TIMES — Dawn broke in the La Puntilla neighborhood with the news of a murdered man. The body had been found thrown in the park on Cero (Zero) Street, in front of the Cuban Sports and Recreation Institute’s offices.

A neighbor who was passing by saw it, the face had been destroyed and there was a bag with a brick covered in blood next to the body. We still don’t know who he is, if he was killed there or somewhere else. It’s likely that his murder took place in the early hours of morning…

When night falls, this park is dark as pitch. Its streetlights disappeared a long time ago, there isn’t a single damn light that illuminates the area, and it’s truly terrifying.

However, Casa Verde, the mansion on 5th Avenue and 2nd Street that borders the park, which belonged to Luisa Catalina Rodriguez Faxas a long time ago, which is today the promotional center for modern and contemporary architecture, has lights all over the place, as well as guards on watch both night and day.

When you cross the tunnel on 5th Avenue to go to Vedado, you find the 1830 restaurant, and it’s lit up like it was day because of the glaring lights it has; but when you pass through the tunnel heading towards Miramar, the darkness is so thick that you can almost touch it.

The park on Zero Street is cursed. A few years ago, a man was found hanging from a tree. The event had a heavy impact on everybody in the neighborhood. People say it was a suicide. Also, an old alcoholic lady died at the same place, seated on a bench.

Many people I know are afraid to walk through this park at nighttime. All of its surrounding streets are deserted, dark, the only light coming from private homes and buildings. Its horrible imagining that some criminal, rapist or murderer could be on the prowl, hiding behind a tree, in a corner, and that we could be one of their possible victims at any time.

I now have a new found respect for Edgar Allan Poe’s horror stories.