Cuba B. C. (Before
Castro)
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Quinta Avenida (Fifth Avenue) |
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Quinta Avenida before the tunnel was built and cars had to use the iron bridge that is seen to the center-right |
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Accross the street from Parque Central |
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Carlos III Ave. The Masonic Building under construction on the left hand side. The umbrella on the center-left is where a policeman used to stand to change the traffic lights by hand |
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The Malecon, under construction |
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The tunnel of Calle Linea, the day it was inaugurated |
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Removing the old tram rails from the corner of Prado and Neptuno |
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The Plaza Civica, while it was under construction.
The top of the Jose Marti Monument is visible behind the building. Later, Castro changed its name to Plaza de la Revolucion |
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A view of Calle San Lazaro, from the University of Havana |
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Paseo del Prado (Prado Promenade) |
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Miramar's Fifth Avenue at night |
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Removing the rails that were used by the old tramways. To the right, Sarrá Drug Store, Cuba's largest |
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The Calzada del Cerro, how it looked 50 years ago |
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One of the buildings along the Calzada del Cerro, in the 1950s |
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One of the buildings on the same Calzada del Cerro now |
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Another section of the Calzada del Cerro |
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Carlos III Ave. under construction. To the right, the Masonic Building |
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Carlos III Ave. after completion |
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Another view of Carlos III Ave. At the end you can see the Masonic Bldg. to the left and the Iglesia de Reina to the right |
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One of the many beautiful buildings along Carlos III. |
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The tunnel of Linea Street while it was still under construction. It was built by Cuban engineers and constructors between 1951 and 1953 |
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Calle 23 toward the Malecon |
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A closer view of the CMQ and Radiocentro buildings |
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Calle San Lazaro. All the way at the end you can see the University of Havana |
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Look at how many public buses were available back then. Now, Cubans refer to buses as "aspirins," because you can only take one every 6 hours |
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Look at these beautiful colonial buildings on San Lazaro street. Most of them are now destroyed |
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Calle Neptuno at Christmas time |
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A closeup of this store in Calle Neptuno seling a TV set. The sign on the storewindow says: "Buy in December and pay in February. No one sells cheaper" |
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Look at how many stores were on each block of Calle Neptuno. Also look at the crew sweeping the street. How different from now, where there is garbage everywhere! |
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Calle Reina with the old Sears Roebuck store |
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A closeup of Sears, where you can see the refrigerators and other items that were being sold. |
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"Los Precios Fijos" store on Calle Reina. Also, notice how everyone was well dressed. You don't see people without shirts, like you see now all over Havana, because with their meager salaries many Cubans cannot afford to buy a shirt. |
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Avenida de Cespedes, Miramar |
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Lonja del Comercio (Produce Exchange) |
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Monument to those who died in the explosion of the Maine |
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Another view of the Havana Riviera |
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Fountain at Parque de la India |
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Galiano y San Rafael (La esquina del Pecado) |
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La Calle Galiano (Galiano Street) |
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Santiago de Cuba's Cathedral |
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El Malecon and the FOCSA building |
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The world famous "Carnavales de la Habana" |
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The Montmartre Night Club |
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Las Mil y Una Noches at the Montmartre |
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El Caballero de Paris (The Gentleman from Paris) |
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The intersection of Aguila & Neptuno streets |
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Avenida de los Presidentes |
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National Police headquarters |
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Colegio La Inmaculada (The Immaculate Conception School) |
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Parque Central (Central Park) |
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Fountain at Parque de la India |
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Ministerio de Hacienda (Ministry of Finance) |
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Playa de la Concha (La Concha Beach) |
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Some of Havana's skyscrapers facing the Malecon |
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Havana's tramways on Reina Street |
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Tramways crossing the bridge over the Almendares River |
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One of Havana's famous 'tranvias.' The Cuban Capito can be seen behind |
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The International Nautical Club (1953) |
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Rancho Boyeros International Airport |
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I want to thank Eng. William R. Gonzalez for allowing
us to share with all of you these pictures
of Cuba B.C. that bring back so many wonderful
memories.
El Encanto, Havana's most famous department
store was also considered one of the world's best
during the 1950s.
It was founded in 1888 by two
partners, José Solís and Aquilino Entrialgo.
It was situated at Havana's
most famous intersection, Galiano and San Rafael, known to Cubans
as 'La esquina
del pecado' (The sin's corner), because of all the beautiful women that
walked by
on their way to El Encanto, and other department stores nearby, such
as Fin De Siglo, Floglar,
and the 'Ten Cent' (Woolworth's).
It had subsidiaries in many
other cities in Cuba.
Errol Flynn, Robert Taylor,
John Wayne, Tyrone Power, Ray Milland, Debbie Reynolds, Pier
Angelli, Lana
Turner and many other Hollywood luminaries, used to shop at El Encanto.
Almost every famous visitor to the Island
always made a stop at this gorgeous department
store.
Here is how El Encanto looked during
Christmas of 1953:
Click here to see
a video with the history of El Encanto, narrated by some of its employees
(Courtesy of contactocuba.com)
El Colegio de Belen (Belen
School).
Fidel Castro was a
student at El Colegio de Belen in Havana, and later
paid them back
by taking over the school and closing it in 1961.
Here is an excerpt fro an article in
the Miami Herald on the 150th. Anniversary of the Colegio de Belen:
"In 1854,
the Real Colegio de Belen opened its doors to 40
students for the first time in Havana after Queen Isabel II of Spain
issued its royal charter. Officially signed over to Jesuit priests in 1898,
Belen steadily grew.
By the time
80 communist soldiers occupied the school's campus for Castro in January 1961,
it had 60 acres with
1,200 students. On Sept. 17 of that year, 26
Jesuit priests -- expelled by Castro -- boarded the Covadonga ship and headed
for Miami. The Jesuits immediately opened a small campus for fewer than 200
students on the fourth floor
of the
Centro Hispano Católico at the Gesu Church, in downtown. The following
year, they moved to a warehouse
on the
corner of Southwest
Eighth Street and Seventh Avenue." On September 14, 1981 the school moved
to its new
30 acres
facilities at 500 SW 127th. Ave in Miami with an enrollment of 598 students. Now there are more than 1,000
students from 27 different countries attending Belen.
Colegio de Belen
(Havana)
Belen Jesuit Preparatory School (Miami)
El Edificio FOCSA
(The FOCSA Building)
The FOCSA (Fomentos de
Obras y Construcciones S. A) is considered one of the marvels of Cuban
engineering. Built in record time, just 28 months, the FOCSA was located on a
square block between
17, 19, M and N streets in El Vedado. Construction
began on February of 1954 and the building was
completed in June of 1956. The building has 39
floors, 30 floors for apartments and 9 floors for
multiple use, including a movie theater, stores,
supermarket and even a TV studio.
The building, 397 feet high, was made of concrete
and at the time was the second tallest concrete
building in the world.
The typical floor has 13 apartments, 5 apartments
with 3 bedrooms and maid's quarters and 8 with
2 bedrooms and maid's quarters. The 3 bedroom
apartments had a price of 21,500 pesos and the other
ones were 17,500 pesos each. The price would go up
30 pesos for each higher floor.
In the 1990s the FOCSA, like many
other buildings in Havana, turned into an eyesore. The higher floors
became
vulture nests. In 2000, there was an accident involving one of the elevators,
when one of the
elevator's cable snapped, killing one person and injuring 3
others, click here to see further details: http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/cuba/elevator.htm
Many
of the families still living at the FOCSA had to use the staircase to go down
because they were
afraid to use the elevators that were still
running.
In the last few years the Castro
regime has begun repairing the FOCSA. There are rumors that it plans
to begin selling the apartments to wealthy
foreigners.
The photos below are courtesy of
Mr. Alberto Quiroga whose parents were the owners of the Palladium Jewelry
located at the FOCSA:
Sales brochures for a 3 bedrooms corner apartment and
for a 3 bedroom in the center of the building
A true hero: Vicente León León,
the FOCSA building manager,
who died during the Bay of Pigs
Invasion in April of 1961
%20-%20Martin%20Dominguez%201956.jpg)
From left to right: Architect
Ernesto Gómez- Eng. Luis Saenz, who
performed all
Sampera; another person that we have not
the calculations for the structure
been able to identify and
Architect Martín
of the FOCSA
Domínguez. The Hotel Nacional, Cuba's most
famous hotel, is behind.
A meeting of the Board of Directors
of FOCSA in 1958.
The Windsor Barber Shop at FOCSA.
The gentleman in the front row (third from the
right) in A young Alberto Quiroga, who
provided
in the white suit is Dr. Agustín Aguirre who was the
first us with these photos, is seen here getting
and last
president of the Board of Directors of FOCSA.
a haircut by Luis
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