Hotel Pasaje, Havana
The Hotel Pasaje was located on Paseo del Prado between San José and Dragones, facing the National Capitol. History. Before the Havana walls were torn down, a partial map shows the site of the Villanueva railway the site of the National Capitol and the site of the Pasaje hotel before the plots were subdivided. The Hotel Pasaje was the oldest in the Las Murallas neighborhood. Located in block No. 14 of said urbanization, it was part of the construction of the area in the 1870s. Mr. Pedro Gutiérrez Castillo was the first private owner of all these  plots, on October 9, 1874, he bought, for 250,000 pesetas, plots No. 6 and 7: Lot No. 6 located towards Prado Street and No. 7 towards Zulueta. Later, in that same year, it also acquired plots Nos. 4 and 5 of this block. Each of the portions measured 670 m. Villanueva Station and Campo de Marte in the early years of the 20th century. In the background, the buildings erected on the sites mentioned Villanueva Station and Campo de Marte in the early years of the 20th century. In the background, the buildings erected on the sites mentioned Despite the  meticulous layout of the grounds, the hotel did not emerge as a single building but was the result of the addition of several farms and the incorporation of an existing passage in the block from earlier times. Added to this are the purchase and sale actions of said lots and the changes of owners. Thus, Emilio Reyling and Arcadio Sequeira are the ones who begin to manufacture independent buildings, but with some common uses and linked to the passage. Essential for the study of Las Murallas is the work of the historian Carlos Venegas Fornias The urbanization of the walls : dependency and modernity (1990), and for the Hotel Pasaje, the (unpublished) research by Patricia Andino Díaz Historical Study Sala Polivalente Kid Chocolate, former Hotel Pasaje (2015). In this last work, the previous presence of this opening in the block is revealed, when many might think that the hotel was built from the beginning with the same concept of commercial galleries crossing a block and that at the time they were very fashionable in Europe. . Andino similarly exposes the existence, in the National Archives of Cuba, of Book 99 of the Old Mortgage Registry, where it is detailed that lot No . 4 of block 14 was "crossed by the urban railway track whose translation is agreed to Central Street”, that is, Zulueta Street. Built in 1871, the Hotel Passage was the first building to be built in Cuba dedicated to the hotel industry. Up to that time, the usual thing was to adapt the existing buildings for this function. Gallery. The name of the Hotel Pasajere received its name from the gallery that crossed the site of the building from the Prado to Calle Zulueta. The ceiling of this gallery was covered with glass, which facilitated the lighting of the commercial  establishments that were established on both sides, The gallery made the hotel a popular place for Havanans of the time. Nationalization. By the late 1950s, the Hotel Pasajet was still considered a fine hotel, however, it was no longer the exclusive establishment of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. From the 1920s until the end of the Republic, its clientele was made up of business travelers, budget-conscious visitors, and some families who rented rooms for long periods of time. However, the management managed to survive all the tourism crises in Cuba and the Pasaje hotel continued to offer  services uninterruptedly until its nationalization by the Cuban government after the triumph of the 1959 Revolution. The front of the Hotel Passage faced the Paseo del Prado; the rear went to Calle Zulueta, between the aforementioned roads and with access to both streets, ran a gallery or passage covered with an iron and glass structure and that accommodated several commercial and service establishments, among these are the publishing house “Flérida Galante”, of pornographic books. This passage gave the hotel its name. A few meters from the Central Park and next to the Payret theater, became one of the most representative  urban places in Havana.