In 1932, Korean nationalist Yun Bong-gil detonated a bomb at the park, killing or injuring several high-ranking figures of the Imperial Japanese military during a celebration of Emperor Hirohito's birthday.

In the southeast corner of the park is the Lu Xun Memorial Hall, which contains a collection of his personal belongings, papers, and publications.

[3] The park also contains a plum garden, a memorial hall dedicated to Yun Bong-gil, and a bust of the Hungarian revolutionary poet Sándor Petőfi, some of whose works Lu Xun translated into Chinese.

The new design was based on that of a park in Glasgow, and included a golf course, tennis courts, swimming pool, and bowling green.

Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Republic of China, denounced the restrictions in effect at the Garden and at Hongkou Park in a speech in 1924.

Yuan had agreed to Japan's Twenty-One Demands just prior to the games, leaving the Chinese crowds in attendance eager for victory against their Japanese opponents on the field.

[15] The 1921 games were notable for being the first to include female athletes, though their participation was limited to performing group calisthenics demonstrations with movements mimicking those of modern sports.

[14] The closing ceremony was disrupted by six Hunanese anarchists who fired a gun outside Hongkou Park and distributed anti-capitalist pamphlets.

[17] When Japan invaded China in 1937, much of the fighting during the opening Battle of Shanghai centered around the Japanese marine headquarters there, and around nearby North Sichuan Road.

Yun Bong-gil, a Korean independence activist opposed to Japanese rule over Korea, entered the park carrying two bombs hidden in a lunchbox and a water bottle.

[19] In 2003, a two-story memorial hall dedicated to Yun Bong-gil was opened in the park with the support of the Chinese and South Korean governments.

Lu Xun lived in Hongkou near the park in the last years of his life, having moved from Guangzhou to Shanghai's International Settlement to find refuge after the Kuomintang government initiated a purge of leftist intellectuals and communist party members in several Chinese cities under their control in 1927.

Lu Xun remained a potent political symbol of the left after his death, particularly after the establishment of the People's Republic of China under the Communist Party in 1949.