Havana Crossroads of the
World 1958
[GENTE
Magazine, Vol. 1, Havana, January 5, 1958, No. 1,
American Edition]
Page 11
HAVANA CROSSROADS OF
THE WORLD
PHOTO CAPTION
- STOP
for a moment on any street-corner in downtown Havana and
watch the
passing parade of human faces. Scrutinize them
carefully and what
do you see? That blond man over there for
instance–the man with
the
Page 12
PHOTO
CAPTION - Lovely
royal palms, trade marks of the Cuban landscape, lend
their tropical
splendor to the grounds of the Capitol Building in
Havana. In the
spacious sidewalks in front of the Capitol are sidewalk
cafes
reminiscent of Paris.
PHOTO
CAPTION – Confident,
free and happy. These are the characteristics of
the Cuban
people. Their dress is light for comfort under the
warm rays of
the Caribbean sun. Above is seen a street crossing
on Galiano
Avenue in the center of Havana's fashionable shopping
district.
THE CUBAN CAPITAL THE
FRIENDLIEST CITY ON EARTH
blue eyes and curved nose. Who is he? He is
evedently
[evidently] Jewish, but is he European or American? Is
he from
Berlin, Prague or from the Bronx in New York?
Hazard a guess but chances are you'll be wrong. Them
man's name
is Goldstein, but he's Cuban. He's as Cuban as the
Cuba Libre.
And that slight man over there, walking fast. His eyes
are black
and slightly slanted. His face is the color of old
ivory.
Asiatic, you'd say at once. But when he speaks
it's in
fluent Spanish, or "Cubano" as Cubans say when referring to
the Spanish
spoken in Cuba. The man's name is Wong, but he's Cuban
too.
And what about that youngster over there the boy with the
brown hair
and green eyes, the jaunty step, creased blue jeans and
white
T-shirt? He'd be as much at home in Flushing, Chicago,
Denver or
Tuscaloosa. But he answers to the name of Fernandez
and speaks no
English.
And so they go, dozens of them passing by. The young,
the old,
the pretty and the handsome. Now take that lovely girl
looking in
the store window, the one with the slightly salnted eyes and
the silken
hair. She looks like a beauty from Bali, but she's be
carrying a
jug neatly balanced on her beautifully-groomed head.
But this
isn't Bali; this is San Rafael Street in the
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PHOTO
CAPTION – Havana's
Paseo de Marti, better known as The Prado, is shaded by
gorgeous laurel
trees which form a verdant archway for passerby.
The Prado
divides the downtown area into two parts, the old
colonial section of
the city and the neighborhoods which were developed
later.
PHOTO
CAPTION – This
scene is undoubtedly familiar to the American
reader. This is
Havana, but the crowd might pass for any other crowd in
Philadelphia,
Chicago or Los Angeles.
A MELTING POT OF RACES AND
CULTURES
heart of Havana's fashionable downtown shopping district.
The Cuban types are varied and always colorful.
There's the
Indian, an oldster with the wrinkled and impassive
countenance of an
inhabitant of the Andean plateaus. And there's the
Negro, a
veritable hercules who gesticulates with his powerful arms
and shows
flashes of gleaming white teeth through his thick lips as he
chatters
and laughs.
The visitor to Havana is overwhelmed by the multiplicity of
types that
he sees in the Cuban capital. He is constantly amazed
at the
harmony and gaiety of Cuban life and the joyous spirit in
which nearly
a million Cubans live, work and play together in what has
been called
the "Babel of the Tropics". For this is the crossroads
of the
world, a melting pot of races and civilizations, a city
bewitched which
casts its spell over the visitor with a contagious "joie de
vivre". In a matter of hours he is enraptured, his
indifference
gone. He has found a new home.
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PHOTO CAPTION
- A
nook in the heart of Havana is famed Fraternity Park
with its fountain
of old marble. In the background rises the Aldama
Palace, in colonial
times the residence of a very wealthy family.
The Metamorphosis of the Junker
It was always thus in Havana...
They tell the story here of the first German minister to
Cuba, in the
days before World War I when was an infant republic.
The minister
was a strict "junker", a proud and haughty emissary of
Kaiser
Wilhelm. He wore enormous mustaches, and his manner
was that of a
disdaining grand duke.
Colonial Palaces and Skyscrapers Side by Side
His movements were those of an automaton.
As a result, a group of neighborhood youngsters who used to
play
baseball in an empty lot in front of the ministerial
residence were
surprised one day to find the German envoy watching them
intently from
his front porch. His cold blue eyes seemed to mask a
natural
curiosity as he watched them take their turns at bat.
But, as we said, this is Havana and things have a unique way
of turning
out in Cuba. No Prussian junker remains a junker long
in the gay,
informal atmosphere of this happy-go-lucky city...
For one day shortly thereafter, a prominent Cuban diplomat
and
politician happened to visit at the residence of the
honorable
representative of Kaiser Wilhelm. A servant opened the
door and
informed the Cuban visitor that the minister was not at
home. He
then directed the visitor's gaze across the street –and
there was the
minister playing second base for the neighborhood nine.
And the formerly very stiff junker was doing all right,
too. He
fielded ground balls like a professional and brought cheers
when he got
a base hit on his first time at bat.
One Hundred Cities One
Different men build their home in different ways because
they live in
different areas and in different lands. The types of
homes that
can made from wood and stone vary as the number of people on
earth.
Havana is different, but it's also the same. As you
cross with
the traffic lights at the corner of Galiano and San Rafael
Streets in
the heart of the city's downtown section, you might almost
think that
you are at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street in
Manhattan. The same wide boulevards, the same
impatient traffic,
the same crowds and the same luxuriously furnished store
windows.
Then you are walking down a lovely
UP-TO-DATE COMFORTS AND
ANCIENT TRADITIONS
Page 15
PHOTO
CAPTION - Cathedral
Square dreams of centuries past. The square
remains exactly as it
was in the days when witches were burned in Salem and
pirates stormed
the rich settlements of the Spanish colonial
isles. Only the
uotline [hotline] of an automobile indicates that this
is 1957 –
instead of 1557.
PHOTO
CAPTION – Leading
to Havana's Presidential Palace are many majestic
avenues flanked by
modern buildings, and also small streets like this which
still seem to
resound to the echo of footsteps of men of the era of
the cape and the
sword.
PHOTO
CAPTION – Few
places in Havana have as rich a historical background as
this. On
the left is the Castillo de la Fuerza, built some four
centuries
ago. In the right background is the Cabana
fortress. In the
right foreground near the small temple with classic
architecture is the
under which the "Conquistadores" observed their first
man on Cuban soil.
EXCITING EXPERIENCES IN AN
ATMOSPHERE OF TROPICAL SPLENDOR
avenue lined with trees and thick shrubbery, and you may
wonder if this isn't Paris.
A few moments later you may find yourself in a narrow,
one-way street
with tall colonial-style buildings rising steeply on either
side.
On many of the doors you will see the coats of army of old
Castillian
families. And you could easily imagine that you were
in old
Toledo.
This, is truth, is Havana. One hundred cities in one,
a
cosmopolitan center where the warmth and similarity of the
people have
barred the door to the feeling of hardness and smug
sofistication
[sophistication] and absence of human warmth so evident in
many of the
world's great capitals.
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PHOTO
CAPTION – The
Almendares River forms the boundary line between Havana
and the
township of Marianao lying to the west of the
city. The banks of
the river are lined by shipyards, fishermen's huts,
varying industries,
the dwellings of poor families and sumptuous
residences. Beyond
the river in the Marianao section lie residential areas
which rival for
their beauty and luxury suburbs in other world capitals.
PHOTO
CAPTION – Havana's
Malecon, or shoreline drive, is known thorught the
world. A
balcony out over the Gulf of Mexico, the Malecon
furnishes an
unforgettable view to the first-time visitor to Cuba's
shores. At
night many-colored neon and electric signs illuminate
the drive.
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PHOTO
CAPTION - The
Embassy of the United States is lodged in a building
with ultra-modern
lines located in one of the most attractive spots in the
Cuban
capital. Much of the embassy personel [personnel]
lives in
apartments overlooking the embassy building itself.
PHOTO
CAPTION - Near
the Maine Monument and the American Embassy an
impressive skyline made
up of modern building is gradually ound for the
buildings which look
out over its blue waters evolving. The Gulf of
Mexico forms a
spectacular background.
The character of the Cuban is that of an expansive
extrovert,
euphorious and hospitable. This has resulted in the
preservation
and continued growth among a population of more than a
million people,
many of them from the four corners of the earth, of that
feeling of
familiarity and cooperation which is so often associated
today only
with small cities and towns.
A Stranger Becomes a Brother
Perhaps the visitor to Havana feels somewhat taken aback at
first by
the familiarity and warmth of his dealings with people he
hardly
knows. The city receives him with open arms and it
takes him time
to realize that this unaccustomed familiarity is in fact a
finer and
more sincere welcome than the "red carpet" treatment
accorded so many
distinguished guests.
Often during the rush hours, in the crowded streets and
buses, one man
will want to move past another. In such circumstances
the almost
universal expression is the formal and correct "Excuse me,
Sir".
But this man, remember is a "Habanero", and for him there is
no formal
and correct expression. Instead he says with a smile:
"Give me a
chance brother".
That's how it is in Havana with a stranger, a man you have
never seen
before but who will still treat you with the utmost kindness
and good
fellowship.
Tradition and Progress go Hand in Hand
The most pampered millionaire can satisfy his most remote
wants in
modern, up-to-minute Havana. For one thing Havana is
so close to
the United States–literally minutes by plane from Miami and
only four
hours from New York–that the very latest American gadget or
invention
is one the market or in actual operation in Cuba with a few
days after
its initial appearance in the U.S.
Havana is characterized by an acute anacronism [anachronism]
–the new,
as typified by skyscrapers, air conditioning,
electronically-operated
doors and the latest style automobiles, and the old, a
people which has
still not been able, or has not wished, to let go the
ancient customs
inherited from the Spanish "conquistadores" and their
colonial
descendents.
All this is for the visitor to see. If he wishes to
make his stay
in Havana a vital and living experience, he can visit the
waterfront
bars, for instance, located in the gay seafaring and
commercial
district. Or he can visit the elegant night clubs with
their
fabulous and internationally-known floorshows, the smaller
tightly-packed cabarets where couples dance to the sensual
beat of the
Caribbean rythmes [rhythms], the exclusive hotels, the
working men's
sections, gorgeous residential zones and the city's suburbs
with their
small but clean homes.
All this in Havana –the 1957 Cadillac, the jungle of
television
antennae rising over the roofs of the houses and the
creaking cart as
it is drawn past by an indolent mule, the happy-go-lucky
youngster
dancing "rock'n roll" and the women of the poorer
neighborhoods who
show off the dance rythmes [rhythms] of their slave
ancestors at the
grandiose Havana Carnival.
The visitor to Havana can circulate freely in all of
Havana's many and
varying atmospheres. Behind the wheel of an automobile
he can
drive through the Cuban countryside on the many modern
highways which
radiate out from Havana to all the nooks and crannies of
this
interesting country. In every town and city he'll find
the same
warm welcome. Havana, crossroads of the world, is
Cuba's pride
and joy. And it is a city where two persons who have
never met
before call one another "my brother".
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