title: Method acting

text: The "system" cultivates what Stanislavski calls the "art of experiencing", to which he contrasts the "art of representation". It mobilizes the actor's conscious thought and will, in order to activate other, less-controllable psychological processes, like emotional experience and subconscious behavior, both sympathetically and indirectly. In rehearsal, the actor searches for inner motives to justify action and the definition of what the character seeks to achieve at any given moment (a "task"). Later, Stanislavski further elaborated the "system" with a more physically grounded rehearsal process, which is known as the "Method of Physical Action". Minimizing at-the-table discussions, he now encouraged an "active analysis", in which the sequence of dramatic situations are improvised. "The best analysis of a play", Stanislavski argued, "is to take action in the given circumstances."


title: Method acting

text: As well as Stanislavski's early work, the ideas and techniques of Yevgeny Vakhtangov (a Russian-Armenian student who had died in 1922 at age 39) were also an important influence on the development of the Method. Vakhtangov's "object exercises" were developed further by Uta Hagen as a means for actor training and the maintenance of skills. Strasberg attributed to Vakhtangov the distinction between Stanislavski's process of "justifying" behavior with the inner motivational forces that prompt that behavior in the character and the "motivating" behavior with imagined or recalled experiences relating to the actor and substituted for those relating to the character. Following this distinction, actors ask themselves "What would motivate me, the actor, to behave in the way the character does?" The contrast is the Stanislavskian question, "Given the particular circumstances of the play, how would I behave, what would I do, how would I feel, how would I react?"


title: Method acting

text: In the United States, the transmission of the earliest phase of Stanislavski's work via the students of the First Studio of the Moscow Art Theatre (MAT) revolutionized acting in the West. When the MAT toured the US in the early 1920s, Richard Boleslawski, one of Stanislavski's students from the First Studio, presented a series of lectures on the "system" that were eventually published as "Acting: The First Six Lessons" (1933). The interest generated led to a decision by Boleslawski and Maria Ouspenskaya (another student at the First Studio who later became an acting teacher) to emigrate to the US and to establish the American Laboratory Theatre.


title: Method acting

text: However, the version of Stanislavski's practice these students took to the US with them was that developed in the 1910s, rather than the more fully elaborated version of the "system" detailed in Stanislavski's acting manuals from the 1930s, "An Actor's Work" and "An Actor's Work on a Role". The first half of "An Actor's Work", which treated the psychological elements of training, was published in a heavily abridged and misleadingly translated version in the US as "An Actor Prepares" in 1936. English-language readers often confused the first volume on psychological processes with the "system" as a whole. Many of the American practitioners who came to be identified with the Method were taught by Boleslawski and Ouspenskaya at the American Laboratory Theatre. The approaches to acting subsequently developed by their students—including Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, and Sanford Meisner—are often confused with Stanislavski's "system".


title: Method acting

text: Stella Adler, an actress and acting teacher whose students included Marlon Brando, Warren Beatty, and Robert De Niro, also broke with Strasberg after she studied with Stanislavski. Her version of the method is based on the idea that actors should stimulate emotional experience by imagining the scene's "given circumstances", rather than recalling experiences from their own lives. Adler's approach also seeks to stimulate the actor's imagination through the use of "as ifs", which substitute more personally affecting imagined situations for the circumstances experienced by the character.


title: Method acting

text: Alfred Hitchcock described his work with Montgomery Clift in "I Confess" as difficult "because you know, he was a method actor". He recalled similar problems with Paul Newman in "Torn Curtain". Lillian Gish quipped: "It's ridiculous. How would you portray death if you had to experience it first?" Charles Laughton, who worked closely for a time with Bertolt Brecht, argued that "Method actors give you a photograph", while "real actors give you an oil painting."


title: Method acting

text: During the filming of "Marathon Man" (1976), Laurence Olivier, who had lost patience with Method acting two decades earlier while filming "The Prince and the Showgirl" (1957), was said to have quipped to Dustin Hoffman, after Hoffman stayed up all night to match his character's situation, that Hoffman should "try acting ... It's so much easier." In an interview on "Inside the Actors Studio", Hoffman said that this story had been distorted: he had been up all night at the Studio 54 nightclub for personal rather than professional reasons and Olivier, who understood this, was joking.


title: Method acting

text: Strasberg's students included many prominent American actors of the latter half of the 20th century, including Paul Newman, Al Pacino, George Peppard, Dustin Hoffman, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Jane Fonda, Jack Nicholson, and Mickey Rourke.


title: Method acting

text: In Indian cinema, a form of Method acting was developed independently from American cinema. Dilip Kumar, a Hindi cinema actor who debuted in the 1940s and eventually became one of the biggest Indian movie stars of the 1950s and 1960s, was a pioneer of this technique, predating Hollywood Method actors such as Marlon Brando. Kumar inspired many future Indian actors, including Amitabh Bachchan, Naseeruddin Shah,Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Deepika Padukone and Priyanka Chopra . Kumar, who pioneered his own form of method acting without any acting school experience, was described as "the ultimate method actor" by filmmaker Satyajit Ray.


title: Method acting

text: Method acting is being discussed more in India with the rise of OTT streaming platforms that feature several popular web series exploring genres seldom featured in Indian cinema. The increasing viewership of these platforms has given space to the next generation of method actors in India, including Rajkumar Rao, Amit Sadh, Ranveer Singh , Ali Fazal and Vicky Kaushal.


title: Method acting

text: Among the concepts and techniques of Method acting are substitution, "as if", sense memory, affective memory, and animal work (all of which were first developed by Stanislavski). Contemporary Method actors sometimes seek help from psychologists in the development of their roles.


title: Method acting

text: In Strasberg's approach, actors make use of experiences from their own lives to bring them closer to the experience of their characters. This technique, which Stanislavski came to call emotion memory (Strasberg tends to use the alternative formulation, "affective memory"), involves the recall of sensations involved in experiences that made a significant emotional impact on the actor. Without faking or forcing, actors allow those sensations to stimulate a response and try not to inhibit themselves.


title: Method acting

text: Stanislavski's approach rejected emotion memory except as a last resort and prioritized physical action as an indirect pathway to emotional expression. This can be seen in Stanislavki's notes for Leonidov in the production plan for "Othello" and in Benedetti's discussion of his training of actors at home and later abroad. Stanislavski confirmed this emphasis in his discussions with Harold Clurman in late 1935.


title: Method acting

text: In training, as distinct from rehearsal process, the recall of sensations to provoke emotional experience and the development of a vividly imagined fictional experience remained a central part both of Stanislavski's and the various Method-based approaches that developed out of it.


title: Method acting

text: A widespread misconception about Method acting—particularly in the popular media—equates Method actors with actors who choose to remain in character even offstage or off-camera for the duration of a project. In his book "A Dream of Passion", Strasberg wrote that Stanislavski, early in his directing career, "require[d] his actors to live 'in character' off stage", but that "the results were never fully satisfactory". Stanislavski did experiment with this approach in his own acting before he became a professional actor and founded the Moscow Art Theatre, though he soon abandoned it. Some Method actors employ this technique, such as Daniel Day-Lewis, but Strasberg did not include it as part of his teachings and it "is not part of the Method approach".


title: Method acting

text: While Strasberg focused on the memory-recall aspect of the method, Adler's approach centered on the idea that actors should find truth in the script, inner emotions, experiences, and circumstances of the character. Her teachings have been carried on through Larry Moss, a successor and student of Adler. Moss is the author of the acting textbook "The Intent to Live", in which he maintains the basic training of Adler's techniques. The book introduces "given circumstances", which are the facts about the character given in the script, and "interpretation", which is the truths about the character not given in the script. This constitutes the actor's assumptions about the character they are playing.


title: Method acting

text: According to Moss, there are three things that an actor needs to know about their character to find truth in their performance. These things are objectives, obstacles, and intentions. The "objective" is what a character needs to fulfill in a given scene. The "super objective" is the character's wishes or dreams throughout the entire story. "Obstacle" is what stands in the way of the character's objectives. "Intention" comprises the actions a character takes to overcome obstacles and achieve objectives. Moss advocates the position that if an actor understands these facts about their character, they will be able to find truth in their performance, creating a realistic presentation. Moss emphasizes this by claiming that the actor does not want to become the character, rather, the character lives through the actor's justification of the character's truths within themselves.


title: Method acting

text: When the felt emotions of a played character are not compartmentalized, they can encroach on other facets of life, often seeming to disrupt the actor's psyche. This occurs as the actor delves into previous emotional experiences, be they joyful or traumatic. The psychological effects, like emotional fatigue, come when suppressed or unresolved raw emotions are dredged up to add to the character, not just from employing personal emotions in performance.


title: Method acting

text: Fatigue, or emotional fatigue, comes mainly when actors "create dissonance between their actions and their actual feelings". A mode of acting referred to as "surface acting" involves only changing one's actions without altering the deeper thought processes. Method acting, when employed correctly, is mainly deep acting, or changing thoughts as well as actions, proven to generally avoid excessive fatigue. Surface acting is statistically "positively associated with a negative mood and this explains some of the association of surface acting with increased emotional exhaustion". This negative mood that is created leads to fear, anxiety, feelings of shame and sleep deprivation.


title: Method acting

text: Raw emotion (unresolved emotions conjured up for acting) may result in sleep deprivation and the cyclical nature of the ensuing side effects. Sleep deprivation alone can lead to impaired function, causing some individuals to have "acute episodes of psychosis". Sleep deprivation initiates chemical changes in the brain that can lead to behavior similar to psychotic individuals. These episodes can lead to more lasting psychological damage. In cases where raw emotion that has not been resolved, or traumas have been evoked before closure has been reached by the individual, the emotion can result in greater emotional instability and an increased sense of anxiety, fear or shame.


title: Havana

text: Havana (; Spanish: "La Habana" ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center. The city has a population of 2.3million inhabitants, and it spans a total of – making it the largest city by area, the most populous city, and the fourth largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean region.


title: Havana

text: The city of Havana was founded by the Spanish in the 16th century, it served as a springboard for the Spanish conquest of the Americas becoming a stopping point for Spanish galleons returning to Spain. Philip II of Spain granted Havana the title of capital in 1592. Walls as well as forts were built to protect the city.


title: Havana

text: The sinking of the U.S. battleship "Maine" in Havana's harbor in 1898 was the immediate cause of the Spanish–American War.


title: Havana

text: The city is the center of the Cuban government, and home to various ministries, headquarters of businesses and over 100 diplomatic offices. The governor is Reinaldo García Zapata of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC). In 2009, the city/province had the third highest income in the country.


title: Havana

text: Contemporary Havana can essentially be described as three cities in one: Old Havana, Vedado and the newer suburban districts. The city extends mostly westward and southward from the bay, which is entered through a narrow inlet and which divides into three main harbors: Marimelena, Guanabacoa and Antares. The Almendares River traverses the city from south to north, entering the Straits of Florida a few miles west of the bay.


title: Havana

text: The city attracts over amillion tourists annually; the Official Census for Havana reports that in 2010 the city was visited by 1,176,627 international tourists, a 20% increase from 2005. Old Havana was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982. The city is also noted for its history, culture, architecture and monuments. As typical of Cuba, Havana experiences a tropical climate.


title: Havana

text: In 1514, Diego Velázquez founded the city San Cristóbal de la Habana, which meant "Saint Christopher of the Habana" and later became the capital of Cuba. Habana was the name of the local people group. It is not clear where the name derived from, but it has been theorized that the appellation derives from Habaguanex, who was a chief of the Native American tribe. His name is Taíno, which is an Arawakan language, but nothing else is known. When Habana was adapted into English, the was switched to a because of a linguistic phenomenon known as betacism, which is a confusion between the voiced bilabial plosive and voiced labiodental fricative sounds that occurs in most modern Spanish dialects. Usage of the word Havana in literature understandably peaked during the Spanish–American War, but it still is being propped up a lot because it represents a type of cigar, a color, and a type of rabbit as well as the city.


title: Havana

text: The coat of arms of Havana consists of three castles that represent the three castles that defended the city: the Fuerza Castle, the Morro Castle and the Punta Castle. The key represents that Havana was the gateway to the New World. The shield, supported by an oak branch on one side and a laurel wreath on the other, symbolizes the strength of the nation, the laurel wreath, honor, and glory. These symbols represent the rights of man.


title: Havana

text: Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar founded Havana on August 25, 1515, on the southern coast of the island, near the present town of Surgidero de Batabanó on the banks of the Mayabeque River close to Playa Mayabeque. However, all attempts to found a city on Cuba's south coast failed; an early map of Cuba drawn in 1514 places the town at the mouth of the river.


title: Havana

text: Between 1514 and 1519 the Spanish established two settlements on the north coast, one of them in "La Chorrera", around the site of the Torreón de la Chorrera, what eventually became the neighborhoods of Vedado and Miramar, next to the mouth of the Almendares River. The town that became Havana originated adjacent to what was then called "Puerto de Carenas" (literally, "Careening Bay"), in 1519. The quality of this natural bay, which now hosts Havana's harbor, warranted this change of location.


title: Havana

text: Pánfilo de Narváez gave Havana – the sixth town founded by the Spanish on Cuba – its name: "San Cristóbal de la Habana". The name combines "San Cristóbal", patron saint of Havana. Shortly after the founding of Cuba's first cities, the island served as little more than a base for the "Conquista" of other lands.


title: Havana

text: Havana began as a trading port, and suffered regular attacks by buccaneers, pirates, and French corsairs. The first attack and resultant burning of the city was by the French corsair Jacques de Sores in 1555. Such attacks convinced the Spanish Crown to fund the construction of the first fortresses in the main cities – not only to counteract the pirates and corsairs, but also to exert more control over commerce with the West Indies, and to limit the extensive "contrabando" (black market) that had arisen due to the trade restrictions imposed by the "Casa de Contratación" of Seville (the crown-controlled trading house that held a monopoly on New World trade).


title: Havana

text: Ships from all over the New World carried products first to Havana, to be taken by the fleet to Spain. The thousands of ships gathered in the city's bay also fueled Havana's agriculture and manufacture, since they had to be supplied with food, water, and other products needed to traverse the ocean.


title: Havana

text: On December 20, 1592, King Philip II of Spain granted Havana the title of City. Later on, the city would be officially designated as "Key to the New World and Rampart of the West Indies" by the Spanish Crown. In the meantime, efforts to build or improve the defensive infrastructures of the city continued.


title: Havana

text: Havana expanded greatly in the 17th century. New buildings were constructed from the most abundant materials of the island, mainly wood, combining various Iberian architectural styles, as well as borrowing profusely from Canarian characteristics. During this period the city also built civic monuments and religious constructions. The convent of St Augustin, El Morro Castle, the chapel of the Humilladero, the fountain of Dorotea de la Luna in La Chorrera, the church of the Holy Angel, the hospital de San Lazaro, the monastery of Santa Teresa and the convent of San Felipe Neri were completed in this era.


title: Havana

text: In 1649 a fatal epidemic, brought from Cartagena in Colombia, affected a third of the population of Havana. On November 30, 1665, Queen Mariana of Austria, widow of King Philip IV of Spain, ratified the heraldic shield of Cuba, which took as its symbolic motifs the first three castles of Havana: the Real Fuerza, the Tres Santos Reyes Magos del Morro and San Salvador de la Punta. The shield also displayed a symbolic golden key to represent the title "Key to the Gulf". In 1674, the works for the City Walls were started, as part of the fortification efforts. They would be completed by 1740.


title: Havana

text: By the middle of the 18th century Havana had more than seventy thousand inhabitants, and was the third-largest city in the Americas, ranking behind Lima and Mexico City but ahead of Boston and New York City.


title: Havana

text: During the 18th century Havana was the most important of the Spanish ports because it had facilities where ships could be refitted and, by 1740, it had become Spain's largest and most active shipyard and only drydock in the New World.


title: Havana

text: The city was captured by the British during the Seven Years' War. The episode began on June 6, 1762, when at dawn, a British fleet, comprising more than 50 ships and a combined force of over 11,000 men of the Royal Navy and Army, sailed into Cuban waters and made an amphibious landing east of Havana. The British immediately opened up trade with their North American and Caribbean colonies, causing a rapid transformation of Cuban society. Less than a year after Havana was seized, the Peace of Paris was signed by the three warring powers thus ending the Seven Years' War. The treaty gave Britain Florida in exchange for the return of the city of Havana on to Spain.


title: Havana

text: After regaining the city, the Spanish transformed Havana into the most heavily fortified city in the Americas. Construction began on what was to become the Fortress of San Carlos de la Cabaña, the third biggest Spanish fortification in the New World after Castillo San Cristóbal (the biggest) and Castillo San Felipe del Morro both in San Juan, Puerto Rico. On January 15, 1796, the remains of Christopher Columbus were transported to the island from Santo Domingo. They rested here until 1898, when they were transferred to Seville's Cathedral, after Spain's loss of Cuba.


title: Havana

text: As trade between Caribbean and North American states increased in the early 19th century, Havana became a flourishing and fashionable city. Havana's theaters featured the most distinguished actors of the age, and prosperity among the burgeoning middle-class led to expensive new classical mansions being erected. During this period Havana became known as the Paris of the Antilles.


title: Havana

text: In 1837, the first railroad was constructed, a stretch between Havana and Bejucal, which was used for transporting sugar from the valley of Güines to the harbor. With this, Cuba became the fifth country in the world to have a railroad, and the first Spanish-speaking country. Throughout the century, Havana was enriched by the construction of additional cultural facilities, such as the Tacon Teatre, one of the most luxurious in the world. The fact that slavery was legal in Cuba until 1886 led to Southern American interest, including a plan by the Knights of the Golden Circle to create a 'Golden Circle' with a 1200mile-radius centered on Havana. After the Confederate States of America were defeated in the American Civil War in 1865, many former slaveholders continued to run plantations by moving to Havana.


title: Havana

text: In 1863, the city walls were knocked down so that the metropolis could be enlarged. At the end of the 19th century, Havana witnessed the final moments of Spanish presence in the Americas.


title: Havana

text: Cuba's first presidential period under Tomás Estrada Palma from 1902 to 1906 was considered to uphold the highest standards of administrative integrity in the history of the Republic of Cuba. Initially he was the President of the Cuban Republic in Arms during the Ten Years' War and again between May 20, 1902, and September 28, 1906. His collateral career as a New York City Area Educator and writer enabled Estrada Palma to create Pro-Cuban literature aimed at gaining sympathy, assistance, and publicity. He was eventually successful in garnering the attention of influential Americans. Estrada Palma was an early and persistent voice calling for the United States to intervene in Cuba on humanitarian grounds. He was the first President of Cuba. During his presidency, his major accomplishments include improving Cuba's infrastructure, communication, and public health. He is remembered in Cuba however for allowing the Platt Amendment to be enacted, which ensured American political and economic dominance over Cuba.


title: Havana

text: While Cuba had the highest ratio of hospital beds to population in Latin America, around 80% of these beds were located in the city of Havana, there was only one rural hospital and it was equipped with only 10 beds.


title: Havana

text: In 1951 the World Bank reported that between 80 and 90% of children in rural areas suffered from some form of intestinal parasites, in 1956 about 13% of the rural population had a history of typhoid and 14% at one point had tuberculosis. A study conducted in 1959 by public health authorities found that throughout the country around 72% of the population was afflicted with parasitism and in the rural areas this percentage was as high as 86.54%. Only 1 in 4 peasants were able to afford regularly eating meat, eggs and fish and chronic unemployment was at 25%. Cuba was a very unequal society with a mere 8% of landowners owning approximately 75% of the land, the bottom fifth of the population took in 2% of the national income meanwhile one-fifth of the population took in 58% of the national income this was one of the lowest rates for the bottom 20% in the world then and even now.


title: Havana

text: Cuba was also under a lot of influence from the United States to the point where the U.S. controlled 80% of Cuba's trade. In 1959 around 40% of Cuban sugar land, almost all the cattle ranches, 90% of mines and 80% of the utilities were owned by American firms.


title: Havana

text: In 1958, Cuba was a relatively well-advanced country by Latin American standards, and in some cases by world standards. On the other hand, Cuba was affected by perhaps the largest labor union privileges in Latin America, including bans on dismissals and mechanization. They were obtained in large measure "at the cost of the unemployed and the peasants", leading to disparities. Between 1933 and 1958, Cuba extended economic regulations enormously, causing economic problems. Unemployment became a problem as graduates entering the workforce could not find jobs. The middle class, which was comparable to that of the United States, became increasingly dissatisfied with unemployment and political persecution. The labor unions supported Batista until the very end. Batista stayed in power until he was forced into exile in December 1958.


title: Havana

text: The Cuban Revolution had domestic and international repercussions. In particular, it transformed Cuba–United States relations, although efforts to improve diplomatic relations have gained momentum in recent years such as the Cuban thaw. In the immediate aftermath of the revolution, Castro's government began a program of nationalization, centralization of the press and political consolidation that transformed Cuba's economy and civil society. The revolution also heralded an era of Cuban medical internationalism and Cuban intervention in foreign conflicts in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Several rebellions occurred in the six years following 1959, mainly in the Escambray Mountains, which were defeated by the revolutionary government.


title: Havana

text: After the revolution of 1959, the new government under Fidel Castro began to improve social services, public housing, and official buildings. Nevertheless, after Castro's abrupt expropriation of all private property and industry (May 1959 onwards) under a strong communist model backed by the Soviet Union followed by the U.S. embargo, shortages that affected Cuba in general hit Havana especially hard. By 1966–68, the Cuban government had nationalized all privately owned business entities in Cuba, down to "certain kinds of small retail forms of commerce" as per law No. 1076.


title: Havana

text: An economic downturn occurred after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Soviet subsidies ended, representing billions of dollars which the Soviet Union had given the Cuban government. Many believed the revolutionary government would soon collapse, as happened to the Soviet satellite states of Eastern Europe.


title: Havana

text: After many years of economic struggle and prohibition, the socialist government has turned to tourism for revenue and has brought foreign investors to remodel the nationalized, former Manzana de Gomez building, and turn it into the Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski La Habana, a new 5-star hotel attempting to develop a new hospitality industry. In Old Havana, a number of streets and squares have been rehabilitated in an effort to rebuild for tourists. But Old Havana is a large city, and the restoration efforts concentrate in all on less than 10% of its area.


title: Havana

text: The city is administered by a city-provincial council, with a governor as chief administrative officer, thus Havana functions as both a city and a province of Cuba. The city has little autonomy and is dependent upon the national government, particularly, for much of its budgetary and overall political direction.


title: Havana

text: The national government is headquartered in Havana and plays an extremely visible role in the city's life. Moreover, the all-embracing authority of many national institutions has led to a declining role for the city government, which, nevertheless, still provides much of the essential services and has competences in education, health care, city public transport, garbage collection, small industry, agriculture, etc.


title: Havana

text: Voters elect delegates to Municipal Assemblies in competitive elections every five years, and the Municipal Assemblies are responsible for each of the city's boroughs. These assemblies elect the borough presidents and vice presidents, which are equivalents to mayors and vice mayors in the other provinces. There is only one political party, the Communist Party, but since there must be a minimum of two candidates, members of the Communist Party often run against each other. Candidates are not required to be members of the party. They are nominated directly by citizens in open meetings within each election district. Municipal Assembly delegates within the boroughs in turn elect members of the Provincial Council (until 2019 the Provincial Assembly), which in Havana serves roughly as the City Council; its president appoints the Governor and Vice Governor, who serve as the Mayor and Vice Mayor of Havana and can be either elected by the council or appointed by the president with council confirmation. There are direct elections for the city's deputies to the National Assembly based on slates, and a portion of the candidates is nominated at the local level. The People's Councils (Consejos Populares) consist of local city delegates who elect a full-time representative to preside over the body. These councils are directly responsible for the city's neighbourhoods and wards. In addition, there is involvement of "mass organizations" and representatives of local government agencies, industries and services. The 105 People's Councils in Havana cover an average of 20,000 residents.


title: Havana

text: Havana city borders are contiguous with the Mayabeque Province on the south and east and to Artemisa Province on the west, since former La Habana Province (rural) was abolished in 2010.


title: Havana

text: Havana lies on the northern coast of Cuba along the Straits of Florida, south of the Florida Keys, where the Gulf of Mexico joins the Atlantic Ocean. The city extends mostly westward and southward from the bay, which is entered through a narrow inlet and which divides into three main harbors: Marimelena, Guanabacoa, and Atarés. The Almendares River traverses the city from south to north, entering the Straits of Florida a few miles west of the bay.


title: Havana

text: There are low hills on which the city lies rise gently from the waters of the straits. A noteworthy elevation is the 200-foot-high (60-meter) limestone ridge that slopes up from the east and culminates in the heights of La Cabaña and El Morro, the sites of Spanish fortifications overlooking the eastern bay. Another notable rise is the hill to the west that is occupied by the University of Havana and the Castillo del Príncipe (Havana).


title: Havana

text: Havana has a tropical climate that is tempered by the island's position in the belt of the trade winds and by the warm offshore currents. Under the Köppen climate classification, Havana has a tropical savanna climate ("Aw") that closely borders on a tropical rainforest climate ("Af") and a tropical monsoon climate ("Am"). Average temperatures range from in January and February to in August. The temperature seldom drops below . The lowest temperature was in Santiago de Las Vegas, Boyeros. The lowest recorded temperature in Cuba was in Bainoa, Mayabeque Province (before 2011 the eastern part of Havana province). Rainfall is heaviest in June and October and lightest from December through April, averaging annually. Hurricanes occasionally strike the island, but they ordinarily hit the south coast, and damage in Havana has been less than elsewhere in the country.


title: Havana

text: Tornadoes can be somewhat rare in Cuba, however, on the evening of January 28, 2019, a very rare strong F4 tornado struck the eastern side of Havana. The tornado caused extensive damage, destroying at least 90 homes, killing four people and injuring 195. By February 4, the death toll had increased to six, with 11 people still in critical condition.


title: Havana

text: The city is divided into 15 municipalities – or "boroughs", which are further subdivided into 105 wards ("consejos populares").


title: Havana

text: Havana has diverse styles of architecture, from castles built in the 16th century, to modernist high-rise buildings.


title: Havana

text: The present condition of many structures have deteriorated since 1959 or have been demolished, including the demolition of the Plaza del Vapor, built in 1835 by the architect of the Palacio de la Marquesa de Villalba Eugenio Rayneri Sorrentino the father of Eugenio Rayneri Piedra the architect of the El Capitolio of 1929. The Plaza del Vapor was demolished in 1959 by the new, revolutionary government. Numerous building collapses throughout the city have resulted in injuries and deaths due to a lack of maintenance.


title: Havana

text: Riches were brought from the Spanish into and through Havana as it was a key transshipment point between the new world and old world. As a result, Havana was the most heavily fortified city in the Americas. Most examples of early architecture can be seen in military fortifications such as La Fortaleza de San Carlos de la Cabana (1558–1577) designed by Battista Antonelli and the Castillo del Morro (1589–1630). This sits at the entrance of Havana Bay and provides an insight into the supremacy and wealth at that time.


title: Havana

text: Old Havana was also protected by a defensive wall begun in 1674 but had already overgrown its boundaries when it was completed in 1767, becoming the new neighborhood of Centro Habana. The influence from different styles and cultures can be seen in Havana's Spanish architecture, with a diverse range of Moorish architecture, Spanish, Italian, Greek and Roman. The San Carlos and San Ambrosio Seminary (18th century) is a good example of early Spanish influenced architecture. The Havana cathedral (1748–1777) dominating the Plaza de la Catedral (1749) is the best example of Cuban Baroque. Surrounding it are the former palaces of the Count de Casa-Bayona (1720–1746) Marquis de Arcos (1746) and the Marquis de Aguas Claras (1751–1775).


title: Havana

text: The Iglesia del Espíritu Santo at No. 161 Calle Acosta was built in 1635 on the corner of the corner of Calles Cuba and Acosta by a fraternity of Afro-Cuban ex slaves. The Espíritu Santo contains some notable paintings including a seated, post-crucifixion Christ on the right wall, and catacombs. It is considered one of the oldest temples in Havana and it is said that its main interest lies essentially in the simplicity or simplicity of the beautiful stone construction.


title: Havana

text: The church was rebuilt and expanded in 1648 and given the rank of a parish. During the Spanish era it had exceptional importance, since by a Papal Bull of 1772 and a Royal Certificate of 1773, of Charles III of Spain, it was declared "Única Iglesia inmune en esta ciudad, construida en 1855." ("the only immune church in this city, built-in 1855."), which meant that any persecuted individual could find Amparo (sanctuary) in it against the action of the authorities or of justice. A metal plaque at the foot of the bell tower attests to this fact.


title: Havana

text: Many illustrious people of Havana were baptized in this church, among them the educator José de la Luz y Caballero. Bishop Gerónimo Valdés, a founder of La Casa de Beneficencia y Maternidad de La Habana, was buried in the Church; the master sepulcher of Bishop Valdés was found in 1936.


title: Havana

text: There are original paintings by the Cuban painter José Nicolás de la Escalera ("Cuba's first painter") and Aristides Fernandez (20th century), among them the large oil painting titled The Burial of Christ.


title: Havana

text: The Iglesia del Espíritu Santo's greatest interest from an architectural point of view lies in the simplicity of the coral stone construction and the lack of lavish decoration. Other elements of great importance are the funerary crypts that were discovered in 1953. The crypt is from times before the Colón Cemetery (1876) in El Vedado was built. The crypt is entered from the left of the altar and contains several catacombs.


title: Havana

text: The building was built in the "uni-nave" style, as pointed out by Joaquín Weiss, a Cuban architect, and historian and one of the most authoritative authorities on the subject. Uni-nave was the style of Cuban religious constructions in the seventeenth century and meant that it originally had only one central nave. An additional side nave in the first years of the 18th century, the bell tower was built and around 1720 the vault of the presbytery was built. In 1760, Bishop D. Pedro Morell of Santa Cruz ordered the construction of a nave (8x29m) lateral to the main temple nave.


title: Havana

text: The church sits on a plinth of about 18cm that may be seen along Calles Cuba and Acosta. The building is 60m long as measured on the exterior, east–west along Calle Acosta, although from the interior it appears that the last 10m was a later addition as the walls of this ten-meter square room are thinner (along Calle Acosta) and the roof structure does not span the ten-meter dimension. There is a column in the middle of the room to distribute the weight of the roof.


title: Havana

text: There are seven bays of approximately fifty-seven centimeters in length along the main nave. The first bay at the entrance is the shortest of about five meters in length and contains a balcony above which is reached by the stairs of the belfry. The elliptical arch supported by matching pilasters at opposite walls date from 1808 which is the year of the construction of the bell tower. In the middle of the 19th century, the entire wall that faces Acosta Street was rebuilt and the main façade was remodeled. The three-story bell-tower was built in the year 1808 and it is located immediately to the left of the church upon entering, it is one of the tallest structures in Old Havana. The tower was built by the master Pedro Hernández de Santiago.


title: Havana

text: There are five windows along the Calle Acosta wall and, except for the window in the presbytery which aligns with the center of the room, do not align with the grid of the columns. Thus the windows appear to be haphazardly placed without regard for the geometry of the nave or the rhythm of the structure.


title: Havana

text: The roof of the church terminates on the interior in a wooden ceiling of paired cross-tie braces and hidden tie backs springing from every column and supported on wooden corbels. The wood cross-tie brace ceiling is a common construction in Havana and may be seen in the wooden ceiling of the Church of Santo Cristo del Buen Viaje at Amargura and Cristo Streets in Havana Vieja and Iglesia de Santa Clara de Asis.


title: Havana

text: The Alameda de Paula was the first promenade in Cuba, designed and constructed in 1776 by Antonio Fernández Trevejo, following the instructions of the Laureano de Torres y Ayala, it was created on the site of the old Rincón refuse dump. It was an embankment with two rows of poplar trees and some benches, it became one of Havana's most important social and cultural spaces, it was the model of the Paseo del Prado designed in 1925. It was given the name Alameda de Paula because of its proximity to the old Hospital and Iglesia of San Francisco de Paula. Between 1803 and 1805 the pavement was tiled, a fountain and stone benches, lampposts and the marble column were added, it qualified as a pleasant entertainment for the residents of the Villa de San Cristóbal, lacking recreational sites at that time.


title: Havana

text: In 1841, the stairs that gave access to the promenade were widened and several lampposts were added. In the year 2000, the Havana promenade was restored and extended until it reached the Iglesia de San Francisco de Paula.


title: Havana

text: Towards the end of the 17th century, the first stone of what would be the hospital for women and the church of San Francisco de Paula was placed, the buildings were expanded in 1731 with the support and donations from the City Council and orders of the different General Captains in command of the island. In 1776, it was the most important hospital in Havana, there were several generations of famous doctors that trained here.


title: Havana

text: The Presbyter of the Cathedral of Havana, don Nicolás Estévez Borges, in 1664 ordered the construction of a Hospital for Women and an adjoining church devoted to Saint Francis of Paola who was one of the founders of the Roman Catholic Order of the Minims. San Francisco de Paula (1416–1507) was a hermit, famous for his humility and his miracles. His party is celebrated on April 2.


title: Havana

text: Both buildings were completely destroyed by a hurricane in 1730 and were rebuilt and enlarged in 1745 in the Baroque style we see today, resulting in the Royal Hospital of Havana and the Church of San Francisco de Paula.


title: Havana

text: The Havana Central Railroad, a U. S. company, in 1907 attempted to acquire the temple for its own corporate use. The Central Railroad's several attempts to acquire and eventually demolish the church were frustrated by the opposition of historian Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring and anthropologist don Fernando Ortiz. Their efforts not only stopped the demolition of the church but also got it listed as National Monument in 1944. Havana Central Railroads, however, was able to bring down the hospital upon approval from the relevant authorities at the time.


title: Havana

text: An example of the pre-Churrigueresque Baroque style, the floor plan of the Iglesia de San Francisco de Paula is typologically similar to the Iglesia de San Francisco de Asís as both ground plans are based on a Latin cross. The façade has a central arched doorway and columns at the sides, typical of Spanish churches. There is a belfry in the front, but the 3 bells were never be recovered after the hurricane of 1730. The Office of the City Historian restored the stained glass windows.


title: Havana

text: The Iglesia de San Francisco de Paula is a representative example of the Cuban Baroque of the first half of the 18th century. The portion of the church that still exists, the octagonal base of the dome, the façade, and the stained glass windows, all part of the original building of 1745, have all been restored.


title: Havana

text: The facade is similar to that of the church of Santo Domingo, in Guanabacoa and the convent of San Francisco de Asís, built on a similar date.


title: Havana

text: The nave has a barrel vault with a dome that marks the crossing. As an altarpiece, it has a stained glass window. It has the only organ that has been preserved in Cuba with its original pipe and machinery in its original location. The church contains the ashes of the Cuban violinist Claudio Brindis de Salas Garrido (1852–1911), considered one of the best violinists of his time.


title: Havana

text: Neoclassism was introduced into the city in the 1840s, at the time including Gas public lighting in 1848 and the railroad in 1837. In the second half of the 18th century, sugar and coffee production increased rapidly, which became essential in the development of Havana's most prominent architectural style. Many wealthy "Habaneros" took their inspiration from the French; this can be seen within the interiors of upper-class houses such as the "Aldama Palace" built in 1844. This is considered the most important neoclassical residential building in Cuba and typifies the design of many houses of this period with portales of neoclassical columns facing open spaces or courtyards.


title: Havana

text: In 1925 Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier, the head of urban planning in Paris moved to Havana for five years to collaborate with architects and landscape designers. In the master planning of the city his aim was to create a harmonic balance between the classical built form and the tropical landscape. He embraced and connected the city's road networks while accentuating prominent landmarks. His influence has left a huge mark on Havana although many of his ideas were cut short by the great depression in 1929. During the first decades of the 20th century Havana expanded more rapidly than at any time during its history. Great wealth prompted architectural styles to be influenced from abroad. The peak of Neoclassicism came with the construction of the Vedado district (begun in 1859). This area features a number of set back well-proportioned buildings in the Neoclassical style.


title: Havana

text: Built in 1875, in the Reparto de las Las Murallas, (wide strip of land that remained after the city walls were demolished in 1863), it was the work of the architect Eugenio Rayneri y Sorrentino. Around 1880 the mansion was owned by the Count of Casa Moré. The "La Flor de José Murias" tobacco factory was installed in the building. Later, through the exploitation of rents, it became a tenement house. In 1951 some of its spaces were dedicated to housing. On its upper floor, the Spanish Center and the Israeli Center of Cuba had their headquarters.


title: Havana

text: The palace of the Marquesa de Villalba and the Mercado de Tacón were designed by the Eugenio Rayneri y Sorrentino at almost the same time, 1875 and 1876, respectively, each in a style that accommodated the particular typology (residential and commercial) thus conceiving each work with the formal element accommodating different aesthetic requirements.


title: Havana

text: The property is, after the Aldama Palace, the strongest example of Cuban Neoclassicism. The palace of the Marquesa de Villalba is in the neoclassical style, perhaps only comparable in Havana – according to Alina Castellanos – to the Aldama Palace. But while the latter limits the decoration to the natural slenderness of the colonnade, in the most classical way of the Greek Parthenon, the former uses Roman and Renaissance elaborations, hence, the arcade has been projected on pillars, the building was crowned with a considerable cornice. The neoclassical decoration can also be seen in the window covers, which take alternate forms of a triangular or semicircular pediment, and glass over the door, similar to the Plaza del Vapor.


title: Havana

text: Some interior spaces and the openings to the street on the ground floor have been heavily modified, it is still possible to appreciate the monumentality of the building in its three street facades, well proportioned, with a portal composed of a semicircular arcade that culminates in pointed arches at the ends. There are openings on the upper floor, which are alternately topped by triangular or semicircular pediments, a detail that shows a strong influence of the Italian Renaissance, which makes the Palacio one of the most openly academic of the period. There is an unusual Corinthian pilaster order attached to the upper floor, and the main portal by Calle Egido, resolved in a semicircular arch with and a cast iron door. The rest of the composition remains within the scheme of the large intramural mansions, with the ground floor, mezzanine, and main floor, located, in this case, around three interior courtyards.


title: Havana

text: The Palacio de Aldama is a neoclassical mansion located diagonally opposite to the old Plaza del Vapor (Parque del Curita), and in front of the old Campo de Marte; present day Parque de la Fraternidad, in Havana, Cuba. Built in 1840 by the Dominican architect and engineer Manuel José Carrera, its main facade of columns spans one block on Calle Amistad between Calles Reina and Estrella.


title: Havana

text: The Aldama Palace was assaulted by Spanish volunteers on the night of the January 24, 1869. Its owner at that time, Don Miguel de Aldama and Alfonso – son of the building's builder – was a recognized enemy of Spain and conspirator since Narciso López's time. A man so rich and powerful that, despite his ideas and pro Cuban views, Spain, far from punishing him, wanted to attract him with the offer of the title of marquis; Don Miguel refused. In addition, there was another reason that prompted the most intransigent Spanish element, represented by the volunteers, to the looting of that mansion and was the insistent rumor that, by the will of its owner, that royal palace would be the residence of the future presidents of Cuba.


title: Havana

text: Thus, the Spanish Volunteer Corps assaulted the palace under the pretext that Domingo del Monte had a catch of weapons inside of the Palacio. The looting of the Aldama Palace, three months after the start of the first war for independence, is linked to various events that took place under the command of Captain General Domingo Dulce y Garay, Marquis of Castell-Florit, whose main cause was the encounter between the Spaniards and the Cubans and the hostility that the volunteers felt for the ruler whom they held as weak, and whom they accused of complicity in events contrary to Spain, including, those of Miguel Aldama.


title: Havana

text: Street riots had occurred on January 12 after the volunteers during a search had found a stash of weapons in a house on Calle Carmen during the burial of Camilo Cepeda, a young Cuban killed in jail. The Volunteers returned on the 24th and a troop of them fired their weapons into the ‘’El Louvre’’ café, those who tried to flee, were attacked by bayonet. There were seven dead and numerous wounded, all of them Spanish.


title: Havana

text: The Third and Fifth battalions, and the Ligeros battalion, concentrated before the Palace and knocked down one of the doors. They said to look for weapons and, indeed, they found them, but not of those that could be used in the manigua in the war against Spain, it was a collection of ancient weapons ——Japanese, Hindu, Norman, Inca, etc.—— that the Aldama family had collected. The Spanish Volunteers destroyed the art gallery and searched the cabinets and appropriated everything that could be taken, what could not be carried, they destroyed: crockery, lamps, crystals, books, art objects of all kinds. They set fire to the damask or lace curtains and doors and windows were torn off of the masonry, or shot. They also visited the wineries of the Palace, lit a bonfire in the Field of Mars and had the carved furniture and oriental tapestries burned.


title: Havana

text: The Royal Palm Hotel is located on the corner of San Rafael and Industria. It was inaugurated as "Edificio Luis. E. del Valle", in honor of the sugar magnate who owned the building. However, it was soon sold to Canadian Wilbur E. Todgham, who turned it into the famed Royal Palm Hotel.


title: Havana

text: A characteristic that placed the Royal Palm among the favorites of its time was that almost all the rooms had a private bathroom with hot running water. The building had two elevators and a fire-protected staircase. In the 1930s, the hotel was bought by Pascual Morán Pérez, a businessman of Spanish origin who stood out in the field of hospitality in Cuba. Morán was a very skilled man in marketing matters and knew how to take advantage of the brand built by the previous owner to position himself in the market. He marketed his hotel as the best and most central in the city.


title: Havana

text: n the 1960s this hotel was nationalized, like many other properties in the city. There is no exact reference to how and when, but the building gradually became family homes. The practice of expropriating hotels and converting them into multi-family buildings was one of the strategies of the revolutionary state to solve the housing problem in Cuba.


title: Havana

text: The commercial function of the ground floor has been preserved to date, taking advantage of its excellent location on Boulevard de San Rafael. Taking into account the architectural values of this building and its socio-cultural importance within the urban landscape in which it is located, the building received a major restoration in 2000, with the support of the Provincial Council of Seville, Spain.


title: Havana

text: The Bacardi Building ("Edificio Bacardí") is Havana landmark designed by the architects Esteban Rodríguez-Castells and Rafael Fernández Ruenes and completed in 1930. It is located on the corner of Calles Monserrate and San Juan de Dios on a 1,320sq meter lot in Las Murallas, Old Havana. The building is in the art deco style that was popular internationally in the early decades of the 20th century.


title: Havana

text: The Bacardi Building was designed to be the headquarters for the Bacardi Rum Company; it was nationalized by the Castro government in the early 1960s. In 2001, the building was restored by an Italian construction firm. The interior retains the original decorations in marble and granite. It is regarded as one of the finest Art Deco buildings in Latin America.


title: Havana

text: The building was the outcome of an architectural design competition. The owners of the Bacardi company invited a number of architects to present their design proposals for a new headquarters building offering 1,000 pesos to the winner. The competition was made up of a panel of judges that included Henri Schueg Chassin, president of Bacardi, and the architects Leonardo Morales y Pedroso, the architect for Colegio Belen, Enrique Gil, Emilio de Soto, and Pedro Martínez Inclán. The first prize was awarded to architects Esteban Rodríguez-Castells and Rafael Fernández Ruenes. José Menéndez Menéndez was the architect-engineer in the project.


title: Havana

text: Construction of the building started on January 6, 1930, and was completed by the 300-day deadline the company had set for December. Poor conditions of the land required that the foundation use piles of hardwood (jiqui and júcaro negro) and high strength concrete. At the peak of the building (47m) is a bronze sculpture of the company logo, a fruit bat. Its design gives the building a unique chromatic effect and a decorative element of Catalan modernism. At the brim of the building are inflected flat panel sculptures of sirens.


title: Havana

text: The first floor contained a bar with column archways where patrons of the restaurant in the mezzanine area could overlook the bar while they dined. It was open to the public and known to have many celebrities who frequented. Most of the marble and granite were imported from Europe: Germany, Sweden, Norway, Italy, France, Belgium and Hungary.


title: Havana

text: With an area of 1,075sq. meters and 7.25meters of support, the first floor walls, floor, and ceiling are adorned in pink granite from Bavaria, and the two halls are of green marble from floor to ceiling. The construction work was carried out by the company Grasyma of Wansiedel, Bavaria of Germany, which took great care in the fine details of the work and the time sensitivity of the project deadline.


title: Havana

text: The property has a cistern with capacity for of water, which pumped into a tank inside the tower with capacity for . In addition, it has four elevators for different uses: two are used for passengers with a capacity of 10 people each and a speed of 350feet per minute; another is a cargo elevator for the transportation of furniture, with a capacity of ; and the fourth one makes trips between the basement and the first floor to transport goods.


title: Havana

text: Designed by the architect Ricardo Mira in 1929, who in 1941 designed La Moderna Poesia bookstore on Obispo Street for the same owner, the López Serrano Building was the tallest residential building in Cuba until the construction of the FOCSA Building in 1956. The congressman, senator, and presidential candidate Eduardo Chibás was living on the fourteenth-floor penthouse when he committed suicide in August 1951 on the air at CMQ Radio Station.


title: Havana

text: The construction of the building was promoted by José Antonio López Serrano, a publisher who ran La Moderna Poesía. He was the son of Ana Luísa Serrano and José López Rodríguez, "Pote", a banker with ties to publishing.


title: Havana

text: Pote arrived in Cuba as a poor and illiterate teenager who became an influential banker with ties to the government. In 1890 Pote married Ana Luísa Serrano, a wealthy widow who owned one of the best bookstores in Havana, La Moderna Poesía. After the marriage, Pote took charge of the business opening several branches in other locations in Cuba. José López's fortune was due not only to his advantageous marriage to Ana Luísa but also from supporting the Cuban independence cause. Relations with the main Cuban leaders would bring important economic benefits. Among these political alliances was the figure of General José Miguel Gómez, whom Pote financed the 1907 electoral campaign that would propel Gómez to the Presidency of the Republic. In 1908 Pote got an exclusive contract to print the tickets of the National Lottery, which translated into extensive financial benefits. He monopolized the printing of official documents such as bonds, stocks, stamps and bank notes, printed in La Casa del Timbre. Later, he would obtain from the Government of Gómez the concession for the construction of an iron bridge over the Almendares River connecting Calle Calzada with Miramar. José López Rodríguez committed suicide on March 28, 1921, at the time, he had accumulated 93million dollars.


title: Havana

text: Known by buildings of high-quality, modernist architecture transformed much of the city. Examples are the Havana Hilton Hotel of (1958), the Radiocentro CMQ Building of 1955 by Martín Domínguez Esteban architect of the FOCSA Building in 1956, and the Edificio del Seguro Médico, Havana by Antonio Quintana Simonetti.


title: Havana

text: Hotel Tryp Habana Libre is one of the larger hotels in Cuba, situated in Vedado, Havana. The hotel has 572 rooms in a 25-floor tower at Calle 23 ("La Rampa") and Calle L. Opened in 1958 as the Habana Hilton, the hotel famously served as the residence of Fidel Castro and other revolutionaries throughout 1959, after their capture of Havana.


title: Havana

text: The Habana Hilton was constructed at a cost of $24million, under the personal auspices of President Fulgencio Batista. It was built as an investment by the Caja de Retiro y Asistencia Social de los Trabajadores Gastronomicos, the pension plan of the Cuban catering workers' union, with additional financing from the Banco de Fomento Agricola e Industrial de Cuba (BANFAIC). It was operated by the American Hilton Hotels International group and was designed by the well-known Los Angeles architect Welton Becket, who had previously designed the Beverly Hilton for the chain. Becket designed the 27-story Habana Hilton in collaboration with Havana-based architects Lin Arroyo, and Gabriela Menéndez. Arroyo was the Minister of Public Works under Batista. The hotel was constructed by the Frederick Snare Corporation.


title: Havana

text: The architectural historian Peter Moruzzi, author of Havana Before Castro, notes what the Hilton meant to Batista:


title: Havana

text: The Habana Hilton was Latin America's tallest and largest hotel. It boasted 630 guest rooms, including 42 suites; an elegant casino; six restaurants and bars, including a Trader Vic's and a rooftop bar; a huge supper club; extensive convention facilities; a shopping arcade; an outdoor pool surrounded by cabanas; and two underground garages with a capacity of 500 cars. The hotel also featured artwork commissioned from some of the most important Cuban modern artists of the day, including an enormous mosaic mural by Amelia Peláez over the main entrance and a tiled wall mural by René Portocarrero in the second-floor Antilles Bar overlooking the pool terrace.


title: Havana

text: The Habana Hilton opened with five days of festivities, from March 19–23, 1958, with Conrad Hilton himself in attendance, joined by his companion, actress Ann Miller. Hilton was joined by 300 invited guests, including socialite Virginia Warren, daughter of Chief Justice Earl Warren; renowned Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper; actress Terry Moore; actress Dorothy Johnson; married radio hosts Tex McCrary and Jinx Falkenburg; actress Linda Cristal; dancer Vera-Ellen; actor Don Murray; actress Dolores Hart; ABC network President Leonard Goldenson; and journalist Leonard Lyons. A formal blessing ceremony was held in the hotel's lobby on March 22, 1958, attended by Cuba's First Lady, Marta Fernandez de Batista; Francisco Aguirre, head of the catering workers' union; José Suárez Rivas, Minister of Labor; and other dignitaries. The ceremony was followed by a luncheon, with speeches by Hilton and Aguirre, and a huge gala dinner and ball in the hotel's grand ballroom.


title: Havana

text: The casino in the hotel was leased for $1million a year to a group consisting of Roberto "Chiri" Mendoza, his brother Mario Mendoza, Clifford "Big Juice" Jones, Kenneth F. Johnson, and Sidney Orseck. Roberto Mendoza was a wealthy Cuban contractor and sugar planter who was a business associate of President Batista; Mario Mendoza was a lawyer; Orseck was an attorney from New York; Johnson was a senator in the Nevada state legislature and Jones was a former lieutenant governor of Nevada who had ownership interests in a number of Las Vegas casinos. Hilton officials said that 13 groups tried to lease the casino and 12 were "turned down because they either had underworld connections or had refused to subject themselves to rigid investigation." Speculation surfaced that the murder of Gambino crime family boss Albert Anastasia in October 1957 was tied to his interest in securing an ownership stake in the Hilton's casino. Roberto Mendoza and Santo Trafficante Jr., who had substantial gambling interests in Cuba, were both in New York at the time of Anastasia's murder. The police investigation of the murder focused on this theory for a while but later looked at other theories. The murder was never solved.


title: Havana

text: The Radiocentro CMQ Building complex is a former radio and television production facility and office building at the intersection of Calle L and La Rampa in El Vedado, Cuba. It was modeled after Raymond Hood's 1933 Rockefeller Center in New York City. With 1,650 seats, the theater first opened on December 23, 1947, under the name Teatro Warner Radiocentro, it was owned by brothers Goar and Abel Mestre. Today the building serves as the headquarters of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT).


title: Havana

text: For the construction of this building, the Havana building authorities granted a permit in 1947 amending the ordinances that were then in effect in El Vedado prohibiting the construction of buildings of more than three storeys. This statute was modified six years later to expand the construction of up to four floors because many planners and owners claimed the need to authorize them to build taller buildings in the area.


title: Havana

text: The building was set back from the property line five meters, adding four meters for an arcade which allowed a distance from the road while adjusting to the strong slope of 23rd Street, in this way the arcade became a wide gallery and at the same time sub-divided the basement level.


title: Havana

text: This gallery became the covered hall of the cinema located in the upper corner with Calle L. The building had an expressionist curved cover of a large scale relating to the important intersection. This same scale was adopted in the restaurant that was located on the opposite corner on M. Street. The wide gallery gives access to the lobby of the office building. The third building is set up by a prismatic piece on M Street, also set back to emphasize the two corners.


title: Havana

text: The cinema with a capacity for 1,700 spectators was originally a Cinerama which used three projectors and a twenty-five-foot radius screen. It had a small stage in which short-term shows could be offered, to entertain the audience in the middle of the films.


title: Havana

text: The radio station CMQ occupied part of the offices of the ten-story building, which was attached to the block of rental offices. In this area, a part of the land had also been reserved for future television installations, which had not yet been built. In one of its studios, Studio Number 2 was the venue not only of radio program transmissions but also that studio was the location of all or most of the RCA Victor recordings in Cuba from 1948 to 1959. The label at the CMQ complex was Discuba, a Cuban record label founded in 1959 by RCA Victor. It released music by several internationally successful artists such as Celia Cruz, Beny Moré, Orquesta Aragón and La Lupe.


title: Havana

text: The ground floor, which was common for the entire complex, had different types of commercial establishments: several exhibition halls, a bank, a restaurant, and a cafeteria. The pedestrian circulation was designed in such a way so that it made it necessary to pass in front of these premises.


title: Havana

text: The Radiocentro CMQ Building of 1947, built on 23rd Street between Calles L and M in El Vedado, was the first mixed use building in Cuba. The architectural program of the building included businesses, offices, radio, and television studios, as well as the Cinerama Warner cinema. This project joined the expertise of the structural engineers, the U.S. firm Purdy and Henderson, Engineers, and the architects Martín Domínguez Esteban and Miguel Gastón and Emilio del Junco, all members of the ATEC (Cuban section of the CIAM). The building had a great impact since it was published in the magazine "L'Architecture d'aujourd'hui".


title: Havana

text: The building is a series of independent boxes, it was designed by the Basque architect Martín Domínguez Esteban (1897–1970). Esteban had been the architect of the Hipódromo de la Zarzuela, along with Carlos Arniches.


title: Havana

text: The CMQ Building was loosely modeled after Raymond Hood's Rockefeller Center. The Radiocentro CMQ Building had an impact on many Cuban architects who subscribed to Modern architecture and buildings that would be built in the following years, such as the Hotel Habana Hilton across La Rampa (now known as Hotel Habana Libre) designed by Welton Becket and associates with the Cuban architectural firm of Arroyo and Menéndez, the 1958, the twenty-three-story Edificio Seguro Medico by Antonio Quintana, among others.


title: Havana

text: Walter Gropius, during a visit he made in 1949 to Havana referred to the Radiocentro CMQ Building to defend the need for architectural teamwork and collaboration among architects: "It is impossible for the architect to know all of the equipment and installation requirements; therefor, it is necessary for the cooperation of architectural specialists."


title: Havana

text: The FOCSA Building is a residential block in the Vedado neighborhood of Havana, Cuba. It was named after the contracting company "Fomento de Obras y Construcciones, Sociedad Anónima", and the architects were Ernesto Gómez Sampera (1921–2004), Mercedes Diaz (his wife), and Martín Domínguez Esteban (1897–1970), who was the architect of the Radiocentro CMQ Building. The structural engineer was Luis Sáenz Duplace, of the firm Sáenz, Cancio & Martín, and professor of engineering at the University of Havana. The civil engineers were Bartolome Bestard and Manuel Padron. Gustavo Becquer and Fernando H.Meneses were the mechanical and electrical engineers, respectively. It is located on a site bordered by Calles 17 and M and Calles 19 and N in the Vedado.


title: Havana

text: The Edificio Focsa (1956) represents Havana's economic dominance at the time. This 35-story complex was conceived and based on Corbusian ideas of a self-contained city within a city. It contained 400 apartments, garages, a school, a supermarket, and a restaurant on the top floor. This was the tallest high-strength concrete structure in the world at the time (using no steel frame) and the ultimate symbol of luxury and excess.


title: Havana

text: The building rises to a height of 402' above its footings; 11" bearing walls separate the apartments and in turn support the 6-3/4" reinforced concrete slabs at each level. The bearing walls are solid and have no openings except at the basement and lobby floors to facilitate access between rooms. There is an additional concrete mass at the center of the Y, (apartments F and G), to increase resistance to lateral forces. The walls extend through the rear wall to support the corridors. The wall and slab structural system form a three-dimensional lattice resisting horizontal forces. A high strength concrete mix from 3,000 to 7,000psi. was used. The tower and corridors show on the exterior. Reinforced concrete columns support the podium and the stories below. The residential block, the 'Y,' is supported by 13 11-inch walls. There are coral tiles on the ground floor.


title: Havana

text: The building was chosen in February 1997 by the "Unión Nacional de Arquitectos e Ingenieros de la Construcción de Cuba" (UNAICC) as one of the seven wonders of Cuban civil engineering.


title: Havana

text: The FOCSA has 39 floors 4 of which are dedicated to commercial use, two floors are for parking. Twenty-eight floors have 13 residences each. The 34th floor has six penthouses on a plinth made possible by the structural walls which stop below this floor. Each penthouse is the size of two apartments (A+B, C+D, E+F, etc.). The penthouses have a dedicated elevator and patio-courtyards open to the sky. All apartment floors are terrazzo on cinders.


title: Havana

text: Apartments are a one-half level up or down from the service and tenant corridors. A typical floor contains 13 apartments, five have two bedrooms and a maid's room. The cost of the apartments was $21,500 for the larger units in the center and $17,500 for the smaller ones. It was stipulated that an additional $30 per each floor was charged the higher up in the building the unit was located, the highest apartments were the first to be sold.


title: Havana

text: Located in the tower are the building's four tenant and two service elevators and two sets of stairs. One of the service elevators is dedicated to the restaurant and the observation floor. The other service elevator is for the apartments and is linked to the service corridors. The tower also contains offices on the 37th floor for the restaurant, “La Torre,” on the 38th floor and an observation room on the 39th floor.


title: Havana

text: The podium contains a clubhouse, and offices and swimming pools for adults and children. It has gardens, lighted paths, and benches. There is a ramp to the street located at the corner of 19th and M, the podium was used as a staging area during the construction of the project. Below the podium at the fourth level are building offices.


title: Havana

text: The Edificio del Seguro Médico is a commercial building in El Vedado, Havana. Built between 1955 and 1958, it was designed as a mixed use building for apartments and offices for the headquarters of the National Medical Insurance Company by Antonio Quintana Simonetti.


title: Havana

text: In regards to Edificio del Seguro Médico an architect from the Universidad de Oriente, Santiago de Cuba, Carlos Alberto Odio Soto made the following observation:


title: Havana

text: Today the building houses the Cuban Ministry of Public Health and the Prensa Latina Agency. The only complete package of information about the building is the slides that were presented for the architectural contest, collected in the magazine 'Arquitectura', nº 269, of 1955 published by the College of Architects of Havana.


title: Havana

text: Contemporary Havana can essentially be described as three cities in one: Old Havana, Vedado, and the newer suburban districts. Old Havana, with its narrow streets and overhanging balconies, is the traditional centre of part of Havana's commerce, industry, and entertainment, as well as being a residential area.


title: Havana

text: To the west a newer section, centred on the uptown area known as Vedado, has become the rival of Old Havana for commercial activity and nightlife. The "Capitolio Nacional" building marks the beginning of Centro Habana, a working-class neighborhood that lies between Vedado and Old Havana. Barrio Chino and the Real Fabrica de Tabacos Partagás, one of Cuba's oldest cigar factories is located in the area.


title: Havana

text: A third Havana is that of the more affluent residential and industrial districts that spread out mostly to the west. Among these is Marianao, one of the newer parts of the city, dating mainly from the 1920s. Some of the suburban exclusivity was lost after the revolution, many of the suburban homes having been nationalized by the Cuban government to serve as schools, hospitals, and government offices. Several private country clubs were converted to public recreational centres. Miramar, located west of Vedado along the coast, remains Havana's exclusive area; mansions, foreign embassies, diplomatic residences, upscale shops, and facilities for wealthy foreigners are common in the area. The International School of Havana is located in the Miramar neighborhood.


title: Havana

text: In the 1980s many parts of Old Havana, including the Plaza de Armas, became part of a projected 35-yearmultimillion-dollar restoration project, for Cubans to appreciate their past and boost tourism. In the past ten years, with the assistance of foreign aid and under the support of local city historian Eusebio Leal Spengler, large parts of Habana Vieja have been renovated. The city is moving forward with their renovations, with most of the major plazas (Plaza Vieja, Plaza de la Catedral, Plaza de San Francisco and Plaza de Armas) and major tourist streets (Obispo and Mercaderes) near completion.


title: Havana

text: By the end of 2012 official Census, 19.1% of the population of Cuba lived in Havana. According to the census of 2012, the population was 2,106,146. The city has an average life expectancy of 76.81 years at birth. In 2009, there were 1,924 people living with HIV/AIDS in the city, 78.9% of these are men, and 21.1% being women.


title: Havana

text: According to the 2012 official census (the Cuban census and similar studies use the term "skin color" instead of "race").


title: Havana

text: As with the other Caribbean nations, there are few mestizos in Havana (and Cuba as a whole), in contrast to many other Latin American countries, because the indigenous Taíno population was virtually wiped out by Eurasian diseases in the earliest period of the Spanish conquest.


title: Havana

text: Havana agglomeration grew rapidly during the first half of the 20th century reaching 1million inhabitants in the 1943 census. The con-urbanization expanded over the Havana municipality borders into neighbor municipalities of Marianao, Regla and Guanabacoa. Starting from the 1980s, the city's population is growing slowly as a result of balanced development policies, low birth rate, its relatively high rate of emigration abroad, and controlled domestic migration. Because of the city and country's low birth rate and high life expectancy, its age structure is similar to a developed country, with Havana having an even higher proportion of elderly than the country as a whole.


title: Havana

text: The Cuban government controls the movement of people into Havana on the grounds that the Havana metropolitan area (home to nearly 20% of the country's population) is overstretched in terms of land use, water, electricity, transportation, and other elements of the urban infrastructure. There is a population of internal migrants to Havana nicknamed ""palestinos"" (Palestinians), sometimes considered a racist term, these mostly hail from the eastern region of Oriente.


title: Havana

text: The city's significant minority of Chinese, mostly Cantonese ancestors, were brought in the mid-19th century by Spanish settlers via the Philippines with work contracts and after completing 8-year contracts many Chinese immigrants settled permanently in Havana. Before the revolution the Chinese population counted to over 200,000, today, Chinese ancestors could count up to 100,000. Chinese born/ native Chinese (mostly Cantonese as well) are around 400 presently. There are some 3,000 Russians living in the city; as reported by the Russian Embassy in Havana, most are women married to Cubans who had studied in the Soviet Union. Havana also shelters other non-Cuban population of an unknown size. There is a population of several thousand North African teen and pre-teen refugees.


title: Havana

text: Between 2018, the most recent census, and the mid-Twentieth Century census of 1953, Havana's population has grown by an estimated 87 percent, a growth rate typical of most Latin American cities.


title: Havana

text: Roman Catholics form the largest religious group in Havana. Havana is one of the three Metropolitan sees on the island (the others being Camagüey and Santiago), with two suffragan bishoprics: Matanzas and Pinar del Río. Its patron saint is San Cristóbal (Saint Christopher), to whom the cathedral is devoted. it also has a minor basilica, Basílica Santuario Nacional de Nuestra Señora de la Caridad del Cobre and two other national shrines, Jesús Nazareno del Rescate and San Lázaro (El Rincón). It received papal visits from three successive supreme pontiffs: Pope John Paul II (January 1998), Pope Benedict XVI (March 2012) and Pope Francis (September 2015).


title: Havana

text: The Jewish community in Havana has reduced after the Revolution from once having embraced more than 15,000 Jews, many of whom had fled Nazi persecution and subsequently left Cuba to Miami or moved to Israel after Castro took to power in 1959. The city once had five synagogues, but only three remain (one Orthodox, and two Conservative: one Conservative Ashkenazi and one Conservative Sephardic), Beth Shalom Grand Synagogue is one of them and another that is a hybrid of all 3 put together. In February 2007 the New York Times estimated that there were about 1,500 known Jews living in Havana.


title: Havana

text: Havana has a diversified economy, with traditional sectors, such as manufacturing, construction, transportation and communications, and new or revived ones such as biotechnology and tourism.


title: Havana

text: The city's economy first developed on the basis of its location, which made it one of the early great trade centers in the New World. Sugar and a flourishing slave trade first brought riches to the city, and later, after independence, it became a renowned resort. Despite efforts by Fidel Castro's government to spread Cuba's industrial activity to all parts of the island, Havana remains the center of much of the nation's industry.


title: Havana

text: The traditional sugar industry, upon which the island's economy has been based for three centuries, is centered elsewhere on the island and controls some three-fourths of the export economy. But light manufacturing facilities, meat-packing plants, and chemical and pharmaceutical operations are concentrated in Havana. Other food-processing industries are also important, along with shipbuilding, vehicle manufacturing, production of alcoholic beverages (particularly rum), textiles, and tobacco products, particularly the world-famous Habanos cigars. Although the harbors of Cienfuegos and Matanzas, in particular, have been developed under the revolutionary government, Havana remains Cuba's primary port facility; 50% of Cuban imports and exports pass through Havana. The port also supports a considerable fishing industry.


title: Havana

text: In 2000, nearly 89% of the city's officially recorded labor force worked for government-run agencies, institutions or enterprises. Havana, on average, has the country's highest incomes and human development indicators. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba re-emphasized tourism as a major industry leading to its recovery. Tourism is now Havana and Cuba's primary economic source.


title: Havana

text: Havana's economy is still in flux, despite Raul Castro's embrace of free enterprise in 2011. Though there was an uptick in small businesses in 2011, many have since gone out of business, due to lack of business and income on the part of the local residents, whose salaries average $20 per month.


title: Havana

text: After the Revolution, Cuba's traditional capitalist free-enterprise system was replaced by a heavily socialized economic system. In Havana, Cuban-owned businesses and U.S.-owned businesses were nationalized and today most businesses operate solely under state control.


title: Havana

text: In Old Havana and throughout Vedado there are several small private businesses, such as shoe-repair shops or dressmaking facilities. Banking as well is also under state control, and the National Bank of Cuba, headquartered in Havana, is the control center of the Cuban economy. Its branches in some cases occupy buildings that were in pre-revolutionary times the offices of Cuban or foreign banks.


title: Havana

text: In the late 1990s Vedado, located along the atlantic waterfront, started to represent the principal commercial area. It was developed extensively between 1930 and 1960, when Havana developed as a major destination for U.S. tourists; high-rise hotels, casinos, restaurants, and upscale commercial establishments, many reflecting the art deco style.


title: Havana

text: Vedado is today Havana's financial district, the main banks, airline companies offices, shops, most businesses headquarters, numerous high-rise apartments and hotels, are located in the area. The University of Havana is located in Vedado.


title: Havana

text: The city has long been a popular attraction for tourists. Between 1915 and 1930, Havana hosted more tourists than any other location in the Caribbean. The influx was due in large part to Cuba's proximity to the United States, where restrictive prohibition on alcohol and other pastimes stood in stark contrast to the island's traditionally relaxed attitude to leisure pursuits. A pamphlet published by E.C. Kropp Co., Milwaukee, WI, between 1921 and 1939 promoting tourism in Havana, Cuba, can be found in the University of Houston Digital Library, Havana, Cuba, The Summer Land of the World, Digital Collection.


title: Havana

text: With the deterioration of Cuba – United States relations and the imposition of the trade embargo on the island in 1961, tourism dropped drastically and did not return to anything close to its pre-revolution levels until 1989. The revolutionary government in general, and Fidel Castro in particular, opposed any considerable development of tourism. In 1982, the Cuban government passed a foreign investment code which opened a number of sectors to foreign capital.


title: Havana

text: Through the creation of firms open to such foreign investment (such as "Cubanacan"), Cuba began to attract capital for hotel development, managing to increase the number of tourists from 130,000 (in 1980) to 326,000 (by the end of that decade).


title: Havana

text: Havana has also been a popular health tourism destination for more than 20 years. Foreign patients travel to Cuba, Havana in particular, for a wide range of treatments including eye-surgery, neurological disorders such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease, and orthopedics. Many patients are from Latin America, although medical treatment for retinitis pigmentosa, often known as night blindness, has attracted many patients from Europe and North America.


title: Havana

text: Havana attracts over amillion tourists annually, the Official Census for Havana reports that in 2010 the city was visited by 1,176,627 international tourists, a 20% increase from 2005.


title: Havana

text: The years after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the city, and Cuba in general have suffered decades of economic deterioration, including Special Period of the 1990s. The national government does not have an official definition of poverty. The government researchers argue that "poverty" in most commonly accepted meanings does not really exist in Cuba, but rather that there is a sector of the population that can be described as "at risk" or "vulnerable" using internationally accepted measures.


title: Havana

text: The generic term "slum" is seldom used in Cuba, substandard housing is described: housing type, housing conditions, building materials, and settlement type. The National Housing Institute considers units in "solares" (a large inner-city mansion or older hotel or boarding house subdivided into rooms, sometimes with over 60 families) and shanty towns to be the "precarious housing stock" and tracks their number. Most slum units are concentrated in the inner-city municipalities of Old Havana and Centro Habana, as well as such neighborhoods as "Atarés" in Regla. People living in slums have access to the same education, health care, job opportunities and social security as those who live in formerly privileged neighborhoods. Shanty towns are scattered throughout the city except for in a few central areas.


title: Havana

text: Over 9% of Havana's population live in "cuartería" ("solares, ciudadela"), 3.3% in shanty towns, and 0.3% in refugee shelters. This does not include an estimate of the number of people living in housing in "fair" or "poor" condition because in many cases these units do not necessarily constitute slum housing but rather are basically sound dwellings needing repairs. According to "Instituto Nacional de Vivienda" (National Housing Institute) official figures, in 2001, 64% of Havana's 586,768 units were considered in "good" condition, up from 50% in 1990. Some 20% were in "fair" condition and 16% in "poor" condition. Partial or total building collapses are not uncommon, although the number had been cut in half by the end of the 1990s as the worst units disappeared and others were repaired. Buildings in Old Havana and Centro Habana are especially exposed to the elements: high humidity, the corrosive effects of salt spray from proximity to the coast, and occasional flooding. Most areas of the city, especially the highly populated districts, are in urban decay.


title: Havana

text: Havana is served by José Martí International Airport. The Airport lies about south of the city center, in the municipality of Boyeros, and is the main hub for the country's flag carrier Cubana de Aviación. The airport is Cuba's main international and domestic gateway, it connects Havana with the rest of the Caribbean, North, Central and South America, Europe and one destination in Africa.


title: Havana

text: The city is also served by Playa Baracoa Airport which is small airport to the west of city used for some domestic flights, primarily Aerogaviota.


title: Havana

text: Havana has a network of suburban, interurban and long-distance rail lines. The railways are nationalized and run by the FFCC (Ferrocarriles de Cuba – Railways of Cuba). The FFCC connects Havana with all the provinces of Cuba, and the Havana Suburban Railway serves the city. The main railway stations are: Central Rail Station, La Coubre Rail Station, Casablanca Station, and Estación de Tulipán.


title: Havana

text: In 2004 the annual passenger volume was some 11million, but demand is estimated at two-and-a-half to three times this value, with the busiest route being between Havana and Santiago de Cuba, some apart by rail. In 2000 the Union de Ferrocarriles de Cuba bought French first class airconditioned coaches. New Chinese made and Russian made coaches for distance trains debuted in the 2010s, and some now serve suburban services.


title: Havana

text: In the 1980s there were plans for a Metro system in Havana similar to Moscow's, as a result of the Soviet Union influence in Cuba at the time. The studies of geology and finance made by Cuban, Czech and Soviet specialists were already well advanced in the 1980s. The Cuban press showed the construction project and the course route, linking municipalities and neighborhoods in the capital. In the late 1980s the project had already begun, each mile (1.6km) of track was worth a million dollars at the time, but with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 the project was later dropped.


title: Havana

text: An interurban line, known as the Hershey Electric Railway, built in 1917 runs from Casablanca (across the harbor from Old Havana) to Hershey and on to Matanzas.


title: Havana

text: Havana operated a tram system until 1952, which began as a horsecar system, Ferro Carril Urbano de la Habana in 1858, merged with rival coach operator in 1863 as Empresa del Ferro-Carril Urbano y Omnibus de La Habana and later electrified in 1900 under new foreign owners as Havana Electric Railway Company. Ridership decline resulted in bankruptcy in 1950 with new owner Autobus Modernos SA abandoning systems in favor of buses and sold the remaining cars were sold to Matanzas in 1952.


title: Havana

text: The city's road network is quite extensive, and has broad avenues, main streets and major access roads to the city such as the Autopista Nacional (A1), Carretera Central and Via Blanca. The road network has been under construction and growth since the Spanish era but is undergoing a major deterioration due to low maintenance.


title: Havana

text: The national government assumes all responsibility for education, and there are adequate primary, secondary, and vocational training schools throughout Cuba. The schools are of varying quality and education is free and compulsory at all levels except higher learning, which is also free.


title: Havana

text: The University of Havana, located in the Vedado section of Havana, was established in 1728 and was regarded as a leading institution of higher learning in the Western Hemisphere. Soon after the Revolution, the university, as well as all other educational institutions, were nationalized. Since then several other universities have opened, like the Higher Learning Polytechnic Institute José Antonio Echeverría where the vast majority of today's Cuban engineers are taught.


title: Havana

text: The Cuban National Ballet School with 4,350 students is one of the largest ballet schools in the world and the most prestigious ballet school in Cuba.


title: Havana

text: In 1555, Old Havana was destroyed by the French corsair Jacques de Sores. The pirate had taken Havana easily, overpowering the few defenders, plundering the city, and burning much of it to the ground, but he left without obtaining the enormous wealth that he had been hoping to find there. After the incident, the Spanish brought soldiers into the city and built fortresses and walls to protect it. Construction of Castillo de la Real Fuerza, the first fortress built, was begun in 1558, and was overseen by engineer Bartolomé Sanchez.


title: Havana

text: Havana was founded by the Spanish November 16, 1519, in the natural harbor of the Bay of Havana. It became a stopping point for the treasure laden Spanish galleons on the crossing between the New World and the Old World. In the 17th century, it was one of the main shipbuilding centers. The city was built in baroque and neoclassical styles. Many buildings have fallen into ruin in the latter half of the 20th century, but a number are being restored. The narrow streets of Old Havana contain many buildings, accounting for perhaps as many as one-third of the approximately 3,000 buildings found in Old Havana. It is the ancient city formed from the port, the official center, and the Plaza de Armas.


title: Havana

text: Old Havana resembles Cadiz and Tenerife. Alejo Carpentier called it "de las columnas" (of the columns), but it could also be named for the gateways, the revoco, the deterioration and the rescue, the intimacy, the shade, the cool, the courtyards. There are all the big ancient monuments, the forts, the convents and churches, the palaces, the alleys, the arcade. The Cuban State had undertaken enormous efforts to preserve and restore Old Havana through the efforts of the Office of the Historian of the city, which was directed by Eusebio Leal.


title: Havana

text: The Royal Arsenal was located southeast of the Campo de Marte, immediately outside the southernmost gate of the city in the area presently occupied by Havana Central railway station. The surface of the Royal Arsenal of Havana formed a kind of quadrilateral, which occupied approximately nine hectares. Of this great extension, about three hectares was vacant land, for the most part unhealthy, low-lying and marshy; another five hectares were dedicated fundamentally to deposits of materials, barracks, and warehouses; Of these, some two or three hectares were used for shipbuilding and ship repair activities, and it was where the main facilities were located: davits, cranes, parapets, docks, transport pits, the largest of which had almost a hundred fifty meters at the end of the 18th century; it also had a hospital of fateful fame for the high incidence of deaths due to yellow fever among patients who were admitted there for other causes. On the south side of the Arsenal, some five hundred meters of coastline formed a small inlet of almost a hectare in area, with low bottoms, which allowed the constructed ships to be launched smoothly.


title: Havana

text: The Alameda de Paula was commissioned by Captain General () Felipe de Fons de Viela, member of the court of King Carlos III. It was built by architect Antonio Fernández de Trebejos in 1777. The site of the old Rincón refuse dump, initially the promenade was a dirt track with some benches and flanked by two rows of poplar trees. It was given the name Alameda de Paula because of its proximity to the Hospital and Iglesia of San Francisco de Paula which had been built in 1664. An ornamented marble fountain was built in 1847. Between 1803 and 1805 the pavement was tiled, a fountain and stone benches, lampposts and the marble column were added, it qualified as a pleasant entertainment for the residents of the Villa de San Cristóbal, lacking recreational sites at that time. The Alameda de Paula became one of Havana's most important social and cultural spaces and the model of the Paseo del Prado designed in 1925 by Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier.


title: Havana

text: The Alameda de Paula became one of Havana's most important social and cultural spaces, it was the model of the Paseo del Prado designed in 1925 by Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier. It was given the name Alameda de Paula because of its proximity to the old Hospital and Iglesia of San Francisco de Paula. Between 1803 and 1805 the pavement was tiled, a fountain and stone benches, lampposts and the marble column were added, it qualified as a pleasant entertainment for the residents of the Villa de San Cristóbal, lacking recreational sites at that time.


title: Havana

text: The promenade was the subject of various transformations in the course of the 19th century; the embankment was tiled, a fountain was located there and the back of the seats was latticed. By that time it was considered the most popular and busiest place in the city. Toilets were built which increased its popularity. In the 1940s, squares were drawn at its ends, widened, and provided with access stairs and seats, street lamps were updated.


title: Havana

text: In 1841, the stairs that gave access to the promenade were widened and several lampposts were added. In the year 2000, the Havana promenade was restored and extended until it reached the Iglesia de San Francisco de Paula.


title: Havana

text: The Paseo de Tacón, or Paseo Militar, was created by the Captain General () Miguel Tacón y Rosique (1834–1838) who promoted the reform of the "road" that, starting from the calles of San Luis de Gonzaga (Reina) and Belascoáin, connected to the Castillo del Príncipe. Calle Belascoáin was the edge between the city and the countryside.


title: Havana

text: Avenida Carlos III, was a promenade that Captain General (Spanish: Capitanía General de Cuba) Miguel Tacón y Rosique, put into operation in 1836. When first created, it was called the Paseo de Tacón. Years later, the name was changed to Carlos III in honor of the King of Spain, a statue of the king was erected. Avenida de Carlos III begins at the intersection with the Ayestarán and Presidente Menocal or Calle Infanta.


title: Havana

text: The beautification plan of Havana by the engineer Mariano Carrillo de Albornoz during the third decade of the nineteenth century, contemplated the construction of s comfortable and beautiful walk that would serve for the recreation of the city's residents who were already spreading to more and more of its original city limits and as framed by the original wall that protected them from foreign attacks.


title: Havana

text: The Paseo de Tacón would allow for better communication with the Spanish troops in the Castillo del Príncipe, because until then it was difficult to reach that military installation by having to circumvent a low and muddy road that became practically impassable in times of rains.


title: Havana

text: “It lacked the capital of a country walk where you could breathe the pure and free air, and I resolved to undertake it from the field that they call from Peñalver to the hillside where the Prince's castle is located. It was this site, once swampy and watery, the most on purpose for a work of this kind in the surroundings of this city, in the part where it is not surrounded by the sea. There was also another reason that turned the work into doubly useful, which was the frank communication of this square with the castle, interrupted by that part in the rainy season.”


title: Havana

text: Well-known since the time of the monarchy by the name Carlos III, the street is more than 50 meters in width and serves to direct traffic to and from the oldest areas of Havana. It has four lanes of traffic it is the widest traffic artery in the city.