Safie M. Gonzalez Archives

Relics in Havana: A Story Frozen in Time

They arrived in Cuba in the late 1940s and 1950s, a period of intense vehicle imports and expansion of the national automotive fleet.

In Cuba, housing is not just a roof: it is a broken promise, an old wound that cuts across generations.

Authorities acknowledge that in Havana between 40% and 50% of the pumped water is lost—a figure that at times reaches 70%.

There was a brief period when the network worked. The ATMs, located in central areas, were regularly stocked by armored vehicles.

At 9:00 PM in Havana, the fan stops turning, the television switches off in the middle of a soap opera, and the lamp’s dim glow disappears.

The day in a Havana tenement building doesn’t begin; it emerges. The first ray of sunlight slips between the bars of a balcony…

In every corner of the island, daily life unfolds under an alert triggered by the buzz of the mosquito — no longer just a nuisance…

Walking past the House of the Green Tiles is, for the curious an invitation to imagine the conversations that once took place there.

With the 1959 Revolution, bread became politicized. The promise of “bread for everyone” was institutionalized in 1962 with the Ration Book.

The street was empty, with the bulk of the crowd scattered along the avenue waiting for a collective taxi to take them to their destinations.