The eponymous benefactor of this park ran unsuccessfully for Bangkok governor in 2004, and successfully for the Thai parliament in 2005 and 2011. This park was one of his early campaign promises. It’s a pretty, green patch in a neighbourhood lean on trees. The park is home to a hipster night market called Artbox, featuring stalls housed in refurbished shipping containers.
The story behind the park is shadier than the plantings. Chuvit Kamolvisit was Bangkok’s biggest massage-parlour owner, and was arrested in 2003 for illegally bulldozing, rather than legally evicting, tenants off the land where the park now stands. With all the media attention, he sang like a bird about the police bribes he handed out during his career and became an unlikely activist against police corruption. In 2016, the cops got the last laugh when Chuvit was found guilty of three different charges related to the bulldozing and was sentenced to two years in prison.
