Restoration, Refurbishing, New Paint Adding Sparkle to Drab Havana

Shabby and drab after a generation of revolutionary austerity, Havana is a city in search of new sparkle and vitality.

Long-neglected buildings are being refurbished and painted. An ambitious restoration project is under way in historic Old Havana. Facilities are being expanded for tourists, who are beginning to fill once-empty hotels and restaurants. Work has started on a new port, and plans are being made for a subway.

“There is a lot being done now, even in the year that I have been here,” a West European diplomat said.

Before the 1959 revolution, Havana was the queen city of the Caribbean, a burgeoning center of commerce and tourism. But Fidel Castro’s government snuffed out private enterprise, the United States cut off trade and the capital’s opulence quickly faded.

Western visitors to Havana are usually impressed by the city’s beautiful setting--on low hills rising gently from the deep blue waters of the Florida Strait--and by its abundance of handsome architecture on picturesque, narrow streets or handsome, wide avenues. But Westerners also often remark at the city’s drabness and the often lackkluster street life.

Built Before Revolution

All but a handful of the high-rise buildings in central Havana were there before the revolution. Even the Plaza de la Revolucion, a sprawling complex where the government has its headquarters, was built in the late 1950s as a civic center.

But if time has passed Havana by, it is in some ways a good thing. This city of 2 million people has escaped the floods of rural poor that have overpopulated other major Latin American capitals in recent decades. The architectural splendor of the past is largely intact, untouched by the relentless razing and rebuilding that has changed so many cities.

Now the government is spending millions of dollars to restore colonial buildings in Old Havana, some of them dating back to the 16th Century. Work has already been completed on the Plaza de Armas, which for centuries was the city’s main square.

On several streets nearby, scaffolding covers old buildings that are being restored. Repairs, patching and painting are also in progress in newer parts of Havana. But in some cases, paint put on in the past year or so is already fading and flaking.

“Our climate is very aggressive,” an official said.

Also, paint, which is low on the list of priorities in the state-directed economy, is of poor quality and in short supply.

Most consumer goods are still rationed, but a bit of the old consumer vitality has returned with economic reforms enacted in recent years.

Many new state stores are selling some unrationed consumer goods at higher prices. Their popularity has brought a lively new dimension to some downtown Havana areas.

Farmers’ Free Markets

On the outskirts of the city, farmers’ produce markets in operation since the early 1980s have added an element of booming free enterprise to the Communist economy. After meeting government pr1868854627sell their excess produce to the public.

“We’re helping the state by increasing the availability of products that are hard to produce,” said flower grower Julio Chinique. He said he made more than $5,000 selling flowers in a free market last year.

Public housing in Havana has also had a low priority compared with other social needs, such as health care and education. An extreme example of what the revolution has not done for housing can be found in Romerio, a ramshackle slum on the west side. Over the years, revolutionary commissions have repeatedly come to inspect Romerio, but it remains a crowded jumble of makeshift wooden walls and leaky tar-paper roofs.

“There have been 20,000 commissions, but nothing happens,” a resident, Victoria Laffita, told a reporter. “They promise and they promise--but nothing. I say maybe something will happen in the year 2000 or 3000.”

She waved at a wall of her shack where afternoon sunlight streamed through cracks between the boards, and said: “It’s falling down. All that wood is rotten.” She peered up at the ceiling, which she said keeps nothing dry, and said, “When it stops raining outside, it is still raining in here.”

Aged Buildings Crowded

In Old Havana, aged buildings with balconies overlooking narrow cobbled streets are decrepit and crowded tenements. In Vedado, which before the revolution was a fashionable residential area, luxury homes that belonged to the “bourgeoisie” are divided up for multiple occupancy.

Havana’s proudest housing accomplishment is Alamar, an apartment suburb east of the city that was built by the workers who live there. About 850 buildings there house about 80,000 people. Officials say that eventually Alamar will have a population of 150,000.

The apartment houses are built by union members formed into construction brigades. They are given professional construction help and time off from their regular jobs--up to two years--to put up their buildings.

“All of them have been built that way,” said Alina Perez Hernandez, a young architect who works on the Alamar project.

The government has built numerous other apartment buildings in Havana, some of them for foreigners. Among foreign residents, the most numerous are the Soviets, here as part of Moscow’s massive economic and military aid to Cuba.

Soviets Playing Soccer

At an apartment complex named La Giraldilla, several of the boxcar-shaped buildings are occupied by Soviet technicians and their families. On a recent weekend day, Soviet men played soccer on a nearby field.

In Old Havana, a line of Soviet residents waited to enter the Gorki bookstore, which has Havana’s best selection of books in Russian.

The most visible sign of the Soviet presence in Havana is the new Soviet Embassy, distinguished by a spire that rises high above the elegant Miramar district. Some Cubans call it the Control Tower. It looks something like an airport tower, but the name carries a double meaning.

With Soviet aid, the government is planning to build a subway in Havana, but the first branch is not expected to be finished until 1993.

For now, the city’s public transportation system consists of an overworked fleet of about 2,000 yellow and red buses that are nearly always jammed with riders, many of them standing up. Even on weekends, bus stops are crowded. The fare, though, is only the equivalent of a nickel.

The buses are assembled in Cuba, with Hungarian and Cuban parts. “They have a high breakdown rate because they are overused,” said Joel Balleste, Havana’s chief of planning.

U.S. and Soviet Cars

Sharing the streets with the buses are American-made cars from the 1950s and a larger number of newer, Soviet-made cars. But there are relatively few private cars. Taxis are hard to get, and the city’s broad avenues and boulevards usually have only a trickle of traffic. Even during rush hours, traffic jams are rare.

A new fleet of red, white and blue Fiat taxis serves Havana’s main tourist hotels. Passengers are required to pay in dollars, and this excludes most Cubans.

Special tourist stores in the hotels also accept dollars only, for imported goods such as designer clothing, liquor, cosmetics and electronic equipment. Cuban desire for these hard-to-get goods has helped nourish a black market in dollars.

“If they catch us, they’ll throw us in jail,” said a young man who was trying to buy dollars from foreigners at Copellia, a plaza that doubles as an open-air ice cream parlor.

Tourist hotels built in the 1950s are being refurnished, and new hotels with a total of at least 1,500 rooms are being planned for a growing number of tourists from Western Europe, Canada and Latin America. They come on package tours, mainly to enjoy Cuba’s beaches, but many spend at least a night or two in Havana.

Casinos Long Closed

The hotel gambling casinos that once attracted tourists to Havana have been closed since 1959, but nightclubs and discotheques are booming. The most famous nightspot is the Tropicana, an outdoor establishment where the floor show is a colorful extravaganza.

The Tropicana has changed little since pre-revolutionary days, but many of Havana’s popular discotheques have opened in the past few years, adding nocturnal glitter to a city where the lights have been dim for decades.

Photos of Havana at night in the 1950s show a skyline of neon signs advertising Bacardi rum, Coca-Cola, B.F. Goodrich tires, Westinghouse and Sylvania appliances. The revolution replaced the bright lights of capitalism with revolutionary slogans on billboards, signs and posters.

Not far from the old U.S. Embassy on the seaside Malecon Boulevard, one of today’s few neon signs in Havana declares, “Senores Imperialistas, We Have Absolutely No Fear of You.”

One of the many posters around town depicts President Castro saluting over the skyline at the rising sun, with the words: “City of Havana, a New Dawn of Victory in Production and Defense.”