Architecture, Memories,
Havana Interiors
Julia Wadsworth
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Three
1920
Twin hotels, side by side, brothers. Wide marble stairs lead
guests to their rooms. Tall ceilings, and a bathroom, just enough
space for a couple to have a luxurious weekend. Small service
elevators carry clean towels and hot meals to guests upon request.
Just pick up the phone and dial the switchboard.
1977
Wide marble stairs lead residents to their apartments. One apartment
has been lofted so that there is now an upstairs and a downstairs,
more space for the people living there. Apartment 3 has turned
the bathroom into a kitchen/bath with a kitchenette on one wall,
a bucket of water on a plank for washing dishes (the sink is too
small). Friends trade cigarettes for soap; supplies are hard to
come by.
The woman of apartment 3 lives with her husband and two sons.
She has told the Cuban government that she can not raise her children
in a home with no kitchen (the kitchenette in the bathroom is
kept secret), and she puts in a request to trade her house. This
exchange could take months or years.
2002
By day observe abstract textured walls; stairwells flooded with
light and patterned floors with a hint of sophistication. By night,
confront the blackness of hallways, the cold marble stairs. Lean
against the wall, slashed by the texture of protruding paint or
falling ceiling.
A single man now occupies apartment 3; outside his apartment is
a gaping hole in the upstairs ceiling that lets in the moolight.
A man made the hole and some iron stairs in an attempt at living
on the roof in a small watchtower that looks towards the sea.
No water runs to the roof and when sanitary inspectors visited
he was told he could not live there. Nevertheless, within months
a woman and her two children moved onto the roof.
“The apartment is okay, but the building is in bad condition.
All fixing up has to come out of your own pocket. A lot of people
here are poor and don’t have the resources to repair the
building. There are neighborhood meetings where we raise our
questions and our concerns, but they do nothing. Even twenty-five
years ago this neighborhood was different. There weren’t
so many grills and bars up. Bars bars bars. I didn’t always
have bars—I had to put them up five years ago. A lot of
friends come to my house and ask, ‘Why don’t you
put them there?’ on my last free window. I can’t
live. It’s too much. I can’t have bars everywhere.”
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