Vedado
Vedado, with its sprawling layout, sumptuous mansions, and sense of 1950s middle-class Havana arrested, couldn’t be more different from Habana Vieja or Centro Habana. While Old Havana is bursting at the seams with cobbled plazas and narrow streets fringed by museums and stunning colonial architecture that demand one’s attention non-stop, Vedado exudes an aura of cosmopolitan mid-20th century elegance. And if Habana Vieja is arguably the ‘soul’ of Havana, Vedado is undisputably the vibrant heart, including as the main center of commerce, government, and nightlife.
Originally an area of dense woods and limestone hillocks, in the 17th-century El Vedado (meaning “the forbidden zone”) became a military area closed to civilians and development as a defensive zone against any attach on Habana Vieja. The restriction was lifted in 1858 and a layout approved for an orderly grid arrangement of broad tree-lined streets separated at regular intervals by spacious parks and double-width Parisian-style boulevards oriented northwest-southeast (and perpendicular) to channel the ocean breezes.
Following the brief Spanish-American-Cuban War (1898) development began in earnest as U.S. investors poured in money, while the ‘Dance of the Millions’ sugar boom fostered an explosion in Cuba’s own monied class. Vedadoexpanded rapidly, becoming a showpiece of eclectic architecture. A leisurely stroll down any street is a magical mystery tour of architectonics, with stunning exemplars of everything from neo-classical and Italian Renaissance to Art Deco and Modernist styles. The latter includes avant-garde rascacielos (skyscrapers) that recall the mid-1950s mobster heyday, when laundered Mafia profits metamorphosed into the ritziest high-rise hotels outside Las Vegas.
The hilltop Hotel Habana Libre (formerly the Havana Hilton), Meyer Lansky’s ultra swank 21-story Hotel Riviera, and Mobster boss Santo Traficante’s Hotel Capri (the first hotel to have a rooftop swimming pool) are steeped in Mafia memories. Most of pre-revolutionary Havana’s big hotel casinos were here (the Capri’s casino was famously fronted by Hollywood actor/gangster icon George Raft). So, too, the brash nightclubs of Havana’s famously risque entertainment district at the base of La Rampa (Calle 23). The latter still buzz today: A testament, with their original 1950s signage, to the ill-fated Batista-mobster marriage. Everything changed in January 1959 when Fidel Castro rolled into town with his army of scruffy bearded rebels and set up his initial HQ on the 24th floor of the then spanking new Havana Hilton, just steps from the University of Havana—a magnificent neoclassical complex—where Fidel studied law.
A neighborhood within the municipality of Plaza de la Revolution, Vedado sprawls west to the Río Almendares and south into the more modern (and hillier and rambling) Nuevo Vedado and the vast Plaza de la Revolución itself. The setting for most central government buildings and for major rallies and events, the plaza is a de rigueur venue to visit. Nearby, the magnificent Cementerio Colón is not to be missed. Nor the grandiose Hotel Nacional and, nearby, Coppelia—the world’s largest ice cream store and another shrine to Modernist architecture. In fact, Vedado is studded with sites of interest. Plus, its leafy
Hotel Nacional de Cuba
In response to the increasing influx of American tourists in the late 20s (mainly those who were escaping Prohibition, in force in the United States at the time), the construction of a luxury hotel wa …
Necrópolis de Cristóbal Colón
History & architecture Declared National Monument in 1987, this is the most important cemetery in Cuba and its 57 hectares (10 acres) makes it the largest in America. According to Enrique Martínez …
Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas
This museum opened in 1964 and is housed in the house of José Gómez Mena, a mansion designed by the French architects P. Virad and M. Destugué in 1927. Gómez’s sister, María Luisa Gómez Mena, a wealth …
La Zorra y el Cuervo
Probably the most well known venue for jazz in Havana, the ‘Fox & Crow’ offers an intimate environment in this basement venue notably marked by a red English telephone box at its entrance. Top jaz …
Coppelia
Also known as La Catedral del Helado (the Cathedral of Ice Cream), this is the setting where the award winning Cuban film Fresa y Chocolate (Strawberry and Chocolate) begins. Coppelia, named after the …
Agromercado de 19 y B
With fresh organic products that include fruits, vegetables and meat, this agromercado is best known among locals for being one of the best stocked open-air vegetable markets in the city.
Cinemateca de Cuba (Cine Chaplin)
The Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos (ICAIC) was the first cultural institution created by the Revolutionary Government on March 24, 1959. Its objective was to organize, establis …
Galería Habana
This gallery opened in 1962 to promote Cuban talent. Artists such as Wifredo Lam, René Portocarrero, Mariano Rodríguez and Amelia Peláez have shown their work here, establishing this gallery as one of …
Teatro Auditorium Amadeo Roldán
Opened on December 2, 1928, the Teatro Auditorium was created under the auspices of the Sociedad Pro-Arte Musical and thanks to the efforts of its director, María Teresa García Montes de Giberga (1880 …
Universidad de La Habana
With Brother Tomás Linares del Castillo as its first rector, the first university in Cuba, the Real y Pontificia Universidad de San Gerónimo de La Habana, was created in 1728. After several reforms, t …
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