Obispo St. in Havana, Where Tourism Pushes Out Residents

The main artery of Old Havana has lost much of the network of residents who once gave it grace and life.

By Natalia Lopez Moya (14ymedio) 

HAVANA TIMES – It is one of the busiest streets in all of Cuba, but on the cobblestones of Obispo, those who pass by are mostly tourists, employees of nearby hotels and people from another municipality who come to walk or shop, but there are fewer and fewer neighbors. The main artery of Old Havana has lost much of the network of residents who once gave it grace and life.

“My mother spent the last few years of her life sitting on the balcony,” says Natacha, a 48-year-old woman from Havana who lives in a dilapidated tenement, one of the few buildings in which most of its inhabitants were born or have been there for many years. “She entertained herself by greeting the neighbors who passed by on the street, the merchants and everyone she knew. If she is resurrected, she will no longer have hardly anyone to greet.”

Natacha complains that the familiarity she felt as a child when she lived on Obispo Street has been lost. “The block is now full of businesses, hotels and rental houses for tourists. You go for a walk and don’t meet anyone you know, just people who are passing through.” The excessive tourist character of the area and the exodus of many of its former residents have left the feeling “that this is a movie, all made of cardboard,” she says.

Further up, the block where the foreign currency exchange is located is an example of what Natacha means. There are almost no houses on either side of the street. “There’s the Florida hotel, next to the Cadeca, then a State store and a cafeteria. As for living, no one actually lives here.” In front of the ATMs, in a long line made up of tourists and employees of nearby companies, a dozen people are waiting. “You ask them where the ration store is or if water came in today and they don’t know, because no one is from here.”

The massive arrival of tourists, which may seem like a blessing for any Cuban neighborhood, has completely changed the physiognomy of the historic center of Havana and especially of Obispo Street. On the corner with Habana Street, Hector and his family survive on the second floor of a four-story building. “Here there are only our neighbors and an old woman who lives on the first floor who remain,” he explains. “The rest are rental apartments for foreigners.”

The well-painted staircase, the facade without cracks and a “Room for Rent” sign on the main entrance distinguish the building where Héctor lives. But despite the renovations in the common areas, he and his family would prefer to have someone they know whose door they can knock on in case there’s a problem. “Sometimes we can’t sleep because the renters blast their music and stay up dancing until dawn.

Above Héctor’s apartment there is a rental apartment where “it’s rare that a week goes by that something doesn’t happen: they leave a tap open when there is no water and when it arrives the house floods and there are leaks. Tourists don’t understand that there is no water now but maybe in an hour it will arrive.” Another added nuisance is the prices. “The sellers believe that because we live on Obispo Street we are rich, that everyone here is rolling in dollars.”

The rise in prices in tourist areas is a phenomenon that affects several regions in Cuba. Varadero, the main resort of the Island, was the first place where the massive arrival of travelers from the 90s made prices go up in the markets and for the street vendors. The town of Viñales, in Pinar del Río, and the traditional city of Trinidad have followed in their footsteps.

“What in Cerro used to cost 200 pesos now costs 300 or 350 pesos,” complains an old man. On Saturday he haggled with a cart seller, set up on a corner, over a pound of small tomatoes that looked spoiled. “Buying in this area is like being robbed in the middle of the night at knife-point. Because there are tourists and renters here, the sellers think we are all loaded.”

Finally, the man declines to buy the tomatoes at that price and decides to turn his steps in the direction of O’Reilly Street to see if he has better luck. On the way he has to step over a beggar who, lying on the sidewalk, holds out a tin cup where some passers-by have dropped a few bills. Further along, an old woman with an outstretched hand also asks for “something to eat.”

The proportion of homeless people asking for money on Obispo Street is probably the highest in the entire country. They station themselves on the sidewalks with the illusion of receiving generous alms, preferably in a currency other than the devalued Cuban peso. Some sleep in the stairwells, in doorways or in a corner under the facades.

“When I was a child, the La Moderna Poesía bookstore was a wonderful place. I loved to go there, but it has been closed for years, and the surroundings are now the public bathroom for many of the homeless people who stay overnight on this street,” says Natacha. “Many places that used to give life to the neighborhood, where there were children, have been lost. Now everything is designed for tourism, and whatever does not bring in foreign currency is closed and left to deteriorate.

Natacha believes that the restoration process, promoted by the late City of Havana Historian Eusebio Leal, had “its good things but also very bad results.” Among the negative points she mentions are that “when they allowed the sale of houses this was one of the most expensive areas of Havana, and there were people who bought to remodel and make a private restaurant or a rental house. The families who used to live in those homes left because many were poor, and this was becoming a neighborhood for the rich.”

However, some of those new owners have ended up “closing the houses and putting them up for sale” because they have emigrated. “There are many empty houses and businesses that started out very well but now are gone,” the woman explains. “So you can find a lot of buildings where there are only one or two residents.” On classified sites, the homes on Obispo Street are advertised as “ideal for renting” or “with an active Airbnb rental business.”

Very few ads talk about the advantages of a house for a large family, the proximity of schools or agricultural markets in the area. Obispo seems like a place just to sleep a few nights and continue heading to another tourist destination. The so-called gentrification, which is hardly talked about in the official media, has especially favored the pedestrian zone that goes from the Floridita bar to the Plaza de Armas.

“That old lady over there was born here; she was my mom’s friend,” says Natacha. “She is one of the few left in the neighborhood who has lived all her life in this area.” To cross to the door where a lady in a wheelchair is sunbathing, Natacha must dodge a group of tourists who compulsively take photos of a building from the early twentieth century, bypass the feet of the man lying on the sidewalk with his cup for alms and go past the stand of a seller who offers oranges, twice as expensive as in any other neighborhood of Havana.

Translated by Regina Anavy for Translating Cuba

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