A Tour around Downtown Havana
Photo Feature by Elio Delgado Valdes
HAVANA TIMES — When we walk through the city’s spaces, the interest to know a little about what it was and is, seduces us. The mixture of ruins that tell of a splendid constructive past, the rubble and garbage, and the poverty of some of its people in the search of the day to day, led me to inquire about the history of this part of the capital.
Paseo del Prado is the avenue that divides Old Havana from Central Havana. The former shows signs of rebirth where the old buildings are restored from the ruins and prosperous private businesses flourish. This is in sharp contrast to the neighborhoods of Central Havana, sometimes caught by the sound of the siren after the total or partial collapse of another building.
Central Havana, which rose with the urban development of the 19th century, was the main commercial axis of the city. Crossed by wide avenues, it included the opening of tobacco factories, the construction of the Plaza el Vapor market, today El Curita park, the founding of Havana’s Chinatown, the boom of the printing presses, all along with the construction of considerable real estate.
Nowadays, the municipality of Central Havana is the most populous of the city, with crammed slum housing, building collapses, and uncollected garbage as part of the predominant landscape.
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North Korea is terrible. At least it seems like it from the outside. Cuba is not so bad for foreigners. Rustic at best. Hugely inconvenient at worst. But for the average Cuban in Cuba, life is a daily struggle for the basics. What we consider normal…cable TV, toilet seats, beef, internet porn, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, are rare luxuries in Cuba.
Sad isn’t it? Who’s to blame? My guess the system is broke and those running the show could care less.
From what I see here Cuba is a terrible place! The horror of life
Everywhere in the third world countries, the poverty is deeper in certain sections of the population and areas. In Cuba after the Castro’s disaster the nation has a general aspects of misery more that before 1959 trust me I was born in 1947 and I saw cuba in it’s splendor yes with poor tenements (solares) and deplorable Slums. But this Havana more third worldly than the one I left in 1980, where racial diversity according to this photos don’t exist anymore ( hardly any white person in the street) it’s a new horrible place. Before anyone accuse me of racist I’m Afro Cuban descended and grow up in a the most racial diverse working class barrio in Havana between spaniards, blacks, Polish and some Chinitos. This Havana YIKES!
Isn’t socialism wonderful?