By: Liborio País

Last Novembrer 16th, the city of San Cristóbal de La Habana celebrated its 490 birthday. As happens every year, long lines of Cubans and foreign visitors went to the Ceiba tree to follow the tradition of making a wish as they go around the tree located in an old colonial building, the Shrine. The Shrine Ceremony was carried out with the usual presence of Eusebio Leal, the justly worshipped historian of Havana City. Several events took place in the Cuban capital to celebrate once more the arrival of this important date for the city inhabitants. Not a few foreign visitors were curious enough to go see this celebration, so they tried to schedule their Cuba vacations on the eleventh month to take with them images of this popular tradition which has become stronger with time although, actually, many people do not know that this tradition does not correspond exactly with the true history.

It has never been proved in any archives that it was on November 16, 1519, when San Cristobal de La Habana was founded. During centuries, a lot of research has been carried out with this purpose and nothing has been demonstrated, for there are no archives of the Town Council of Havana before 1550. The tradition started only due to the fact that in 1754, in the place where later on the shrine was going to be, and by order of governor Cajigal de la Vega, a three sided column with inscriptions related to the celebration under a ceiba tree was set. Also the first mass was celebrated and the gathering of the first Havana Town Council at the moment the city was settled in the place it is today, besides Carenas Harbor. Havana was not always in the same place it is today, and there are several studies that talk about the city foundation. That is why it is not strange that a personality of Havana’s history such as Emilio Roig de Leushering, wrote once: “The foundation of Havana is immersed in a deep darkness. It can only be said with certainty that Havana was founded by the Spanish colonists by order and instruction of Diego Velazquez. The history is that vague”. Old time chronicles read that the original date was on July 25, 1515, about 4 years before the accepted date, and American historian Irene A. Wright in her documented book San Cristobal de La Habana in the 16 Century, claimed it was on July 25, 1514. The month of July as the probable date instead of November, is motivated by the celebration on that same month around those years of the ceremonies in honor to San Cristobal, until Pope Leon X decided that it be changed to November 16 so that they would not interfere with the celebration of Santiago Apostle, patron of Spain and its posessions. Taking this into account, it is probable that November had been favored by word of mouth, which is definitely the main basis of tradition, and which, does not usually pay much attention to details such as the Pope’s decisions in relation to saint celebrations. In further research, it has been made clear that it is imposible for Havana to have been founded on July, 1915 for there are official documents that prove that in that date neither Diego Velazquez nor Panfilo de Narvaez, top personalities of colonial power in the island at the beginning of the 16th century, could have founded it, because between April 18 and August 1 of the already mentioned year, they were both very busy in the East of the country. Signed letters by each of them in that period proved they were far from the West. That is why the hypothesis of 1514 as the date of the foundation of the first city in the East of the island, not in the Northern coast but on the South, should be favored. Panfilo de Narváez founded the city of San Cristobal in a place between today’s Batabano neigborhood and the Cortes inlet. As time passed, the first inhabitants of Havana moved to the North looking for fresh water, finding the Casiguagua River, which is nowadays known as Almendares. Along the Almendares banks, they got to its mouth in the Northern coast. It is said that this movement was not organized but a progressive flow of people from the South to the new settlement until there was a moment in which “two Havanas” existed, one in the North and other in the South. Something similar happened later when two other settlements prevailed for many years: the already mentioned at the Almendares mouth and the one located next to the best sea inlet in that area of the Northern coast: Carenas Harbor. When the city got to the site that in time will be its bay, and always looking the proximity to a river that would guarantee fresh water, Havana was first located at the end of Carenas Harbor where today the Luyano River runs into. That place guaranteed the fresh water, but since it was surrounded by swamps, “the battle” with the mosquitos was constant, as it is commun in this kind of place. The mosquitos seem to have won the battle for Havana’s inhabitants were forced to move closer to Havana’s harbor which is the place where the first mass was finally celebrated and the first Town Council gathered, which had been inmortalized somehow with Cajigal’s column and with the pictures inside the Shrine at the Arms Square in the historical center of Havana City. In spite of all the above mentioned, there is no certitude on the historical facts related to the popular tradition of the foundation of Havana City. As we said before, the only thing that perpetuates the tradition of the celebrations in Havana on November 16, the only thing that we can prove nowadays in relation to the foundation of the city is the presence inside the Shrine at the Arms Square of the three sided column portraying the mass and the gathering of the first Town Council. The paintings that decorate the interior walls of the Shrine refer to these foundation events. It is said that such events took place at the shade of a leafy ceiba tree that existed in that same place in the 16 century. This is not true either. At the moment that Havana was established in the 16 century in the place it is today, the main square of the incipient city was not where the Arms Square is nowadays. The main square of the city was next to the Royal Force Castle, but it was not the fortress that we know today but the first fortress built with that name. The first fortress of the Royal Force was somewhere else. That is to say, that not even the place venerated during centuries by the people of Havana corresponds with the actual events that took place. Nevertheless, we have to accept that, sometimes, fiction has better aura than reality itself. Let the city continue enjoying its already ancestral tradition even if history turns away.

By: Liborio País

 

 In former collaborations to the Umbrella blog, we dealt with specific relevant places of Havana City; squares, parks, hotels, important buildings of the Cuban capital or outstanding places of Havana, but we have never referred to a traffic artery of the capital of the island.

Today, we would like to break the habit and talk about the most beautiful avenue of the whole Havana: the Fifth Avenue of Miramar neighborhood; the avenue where the Hotel Occidental Miramar is located at its interception with 72 Street, and which also has along it an important number of commercial and diplomatic representations of several nations. This avenue offers, undoubtedly, the best and most modern image of the city. 

Ever since its foundation, as the Southern way of Miramar (a word compounded with the Spanish words “see” and “sea”), it has been surrounded by examples of the best architecture and town planning of the history of Havana.

The origin of the Miramar neighborhood dates from the first decades of the 20th century and it was a consequence of the migration movement to the West of the city of the wealthy people of Havana society at that time. Around 1901, a good deal of the area that Miramar occupies today, was devoted to pastures. That year, the new land owner, Manuel Jose Morales, asked for a urbanization license to the Havana City Hall.

In 1908, the president of the Spanish Bank, Jose Marimon, created the Town Planning Company of Marianao that comprised a total of 672 hectares between the Almendares River and Marianao Beach. The urbanization consisted in a uniform rectangular sketch with four longitudinal avenues and 19 crossing streets with gardens, tree lines, parks and fountains, framing 54 blocks of 200 x 100 meters. The project was finally approved in 1911.

In 1910, the Architecture School had been created in the country. The graduates from this school generally worked with the touch of the Italian and French Renaissance, where one can see the Florentine arcades, arches over matching columns, etc, but this also responds to the clients’ taste, who do not want to be old fashioned and choose the Roman, the Renaissance and even the Medieval style. A very important aspect that contributes a great deal to the neighborhood development is the arrival to the Cuban economy in 1918, of the so called period of “ The Dance of Millions” which was related with the sugar price rise because of the destruction of the European sugar beet industry  during the First World War. In this context, luxurious mansions started to be built in Miramar, in accordance with their owner’s taste. 

On February 1921, a metal draw bridge over the Almendares River was set. This hydraulic work was known as Puente de Pote (Pote Bridge), and since then, it has connected Calzada Street in Vedado neighborhood, with the Western Avenue which 10 years later would take the name of Fifth Avenue. This bridge was the only one in use until 1953, when the tunnel under the Almendares River was built, making the traffic communication between the two river banks easier.

The Fifth Avenue was the most beautiful one of the time, and one of the architects who participated in the project was New Yorker John H Duncan (he designed the monument to Grant in the USA), together with Cuban architect Leonardo Morales, who had studied at Columbia University. Maybe this is the reason why it is said that the design of the Miramar streets looks very much like that of Manhattan, with its rectangular blocks.

Between 1921 and 1924, a clock tower was built in the Fifth Avenue by architect George H Duncan, who is also the author of the “ Fountain of the Americas” inaugurated in 1924 and located at the very beginning of the important avenue. The four clock bells have the name of Jose Lopez Rodriguez (Pote) carved in them and its sound reproduces the bells of the famous Big Ben of London.

From the very beginning, the houses on the Fifth Avenue were characterized by their magnificence but also for their comfort, since the architects who designed it were very careful with space distribution and with the rooms used for the necessities of daily life.  

Among all the buildings that surround the Fifth Avenue there is a house that undoubtedly calls anybody’s attention. An old house with a peculiar hope color tiled roof is located just at the beginning of the avenue. People call it “the house of the green tiles”.

Mystery and legend surround this house of German Renaissance style and unique of its type in the city. There are many versions to the history of this house. It is said that it was built by Jose Lopez Rodriguez and that it was there where, knowing he was broke, the powerful banker and sugar mill owner killed himself.

It is said, on the other hand, that the house was built by Carlos Miguel de Céspedes, minister of Public Works during Machado’s mandate,  to be the house of Emerald, his lover, a woman with beautiful green eyes, of whom he was deeply in love. The popular legend says that the house was built at the beginning of the avenue so that he could see it from his residence located in the place where the 1830 Restaurant is today, on the other side of the river.

Actually, the house was built in 1926 by architect Jose Luis Echarte to be the residence of Alberto Lamar who was a steward of the Presidential Palace in both government periods of General Mario Garcia Menocal. During a non précised date, Dr. Echevarria, a famous ophthalmologist, and his wife lived in this house. When the couple divorced, the lady stayed there until she died. Since she had no means to repair it, the house got destroyed and she refused all the offers she received to move. After her death, the Office of the City Historian took care of the house and, after being restored, it became the Museum of Architecture.

Besides the houses, on the Fifth Avenue you can see some religious constructions such as the Miramar Church of Jesus, located on the Fifth Ave. and 80 Street, built between 1948 and 1953. The style has influence of the Roman- Byzantine and is the biggest of all churches in Cuba. There are other magnificent constructions as the Santa Rita Church, in 5th and 24 Street; the San Antonio de Padua National Sanctuary, of the Franciscan Order, inaugurated in 1949 at the interception with 60 Street. The Villanueva University was also there for a long time, the only private institution of higher education in the country. The facilities of the Catholic University, as it was also called by the people, are used today to train professionals of secondary level on industrial chemistry.

Although many people think that this avenue is shorter, actually this main artery of the city extends from the tunnel entrance which connects it with Vedado, until the Santa Ana River, in Santa Fe, at the westernmost part of the city, so it can be considered not only the most beautiful avenue but also one of the largest of the Cuban capital.