Our Man in Havana 7: Courtyards and Entry Halls of Vieja

Walking along the streets in Havana, I noticed that many entryways led either into an inner courtyard or to a dingy mysterious common area and stairwell. They reminded me of entry halls in old apartment blocks in Poland. Kathmandu had hidden courtyards, as well. Let's take a short tour of Habana Viejo and Centro.

261 Aguiar in Habana Viejo. Questionable electrical wiring on the wall. What's beyond to the right?

Courtyard in 261 Aguiar. I don't understand the barrels - for rainwater?

Hall and stair at 512 Aguiar. Note that modern digital electrical meters have been installed on the left wall.

515 Cuba Street, with more of the modern digital electrical meters. The mess of wires strung above the meters is slightly non-code. Notice the complicated stairway going through the arch and then ascending behind it. 

507A Cuba, with a courtyard beyond.

265 San Miguel. Whatever building was once here has been cleared out.

Marble stairs at 212 Campanario. This was originally expensive construction. 

Entry hall at 202 Campanario. Note the tiles on the wall, similar to ones in subway stations (durable and washable).

I took these photographs with a Fuji X-E1 digital camera, with some RAW files processed in PhotoNinja software.

Our Man in Havana 6: the Paseo del Prado

Detroit Publishing Co., Publisher. [Hotel Pasaje and Prado, Havana, Cuba]. Cuba Havana, None. [Between 1900 and 1915] Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/det1994023933/PP/. (Accessed March 19, 2017.)

The Paseo del Prado, also known as the Paseo de Martí, is a boulevard with a tree-lined marble promenade running along the center. The Paseo divides Habana Viejo from Centro, and runs from the seaside Malecón south to the Capitolio. In the afternoon, the Paseo is the place to be seen, and a broad cross-section of Havana society congregates under the trees to walk, talk, sing, play music, skateboard, eat and generally foregather. According to Wikipedia, the Paseo was laid out in 1772. In 1925, Jean-Claude Nicolas Forestier, a French landscape architect, redesigned the it, lining it with trees and marble benches (Forestier? What a splendid name for a landscape architect.)

The Prado, circa 1921-1939, E.C. Kropp Co., Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In the Public Domain, Courtesy of Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries.

The chess champions, Paseo del Prado (Tri-X film)

As for fading architecture, you see some splendid examples along the Prado. Moorish architecture? In the Caribbean?

Neptuno view west.

Another view of Neptuno looking west

San Miguel

A street market on San Miguel. I assume this is an example of the small-scale capitalism that is now allowed. Some of the goods were for the tourist trade.

The side streets looking west into Habana Centro are pretty interesting. Really, you could spend an entire day along the Prado watching the people and exploring the side streets.

I took these photographs with a Fuji X-E1 digital camera, most with a Leica 50mm f/2.0 Summicron lens.

For a view inside some of these fading mansions, look at this January 2017 article titled "Inside Old Havana" in American Airlines' magazine, American Way. A German photographer, Bernhard Hartmann, met families who lived in these old houses and gained permission to photograph inside.

Testing a 35mm Super-Takumar lens in Beulah Cemetery and around Vicksburg with Tri-X film

Kansas City Southern railroad cut between Belmont and West Pine Streets, Vicksburg.

Sometimes, really inexpensive things prove to be fantastic. In a recent fit of GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome, suffered in varying degrees by all photographers), I bought an early-1970s Asahi Pentax Super-Takumar 35mm ƒ/3.5 lens. It was only $45, so not much of a gamble. Mine is single coated (meaning one layer of anti-reflection coating on the elements) and predates the Super-Multi-Coated versions that were introduced around 1971 or 1972. All share the same glass formulation of 5 elements in 4 groups.

This lens fits my wife's 1971 Pentax Spotmatic camera. These were elegant, reliable cameras made by the Asahi company and marketed in the USA by Honeywell. They used the Practica M42 screw mount for the lenses, and many companies made lenses that would fit. Camera-wiki lists many of these M42 lenses. But the best mechanical and optical quality usually were the Asahi ones. Many photographers considered the Pentax lenses to be better optically than equivalent Canon and Nikon versions in that era. The thorium-element 55mm ƒ/1.8 Super-Takumar is one of the best 50s ever.

Well, my new-old 35 is an amazing performer! It is sharp and and has beautiful rendering. It is a retrofocus design, meaning it is designed to fit far enough away from the film plane to allow room for the mirror in a single lens reflex (SLR) camera. My 35mm ƒ/2 Summicron-M for my Leica is probably sharper and more contrasty, but it is not a retrofocus design and is a $2000+ lens, not $45. Below are some examples from in and around Vicksburg.

The cottage at 1900 Martin Luther King, Jr., Blvd. had a fire and will likely be torn down soon.

2228 Martin Luther King, Jr., Blvd is a mid-century wood duplex. It is right next to Beulah Cemetery and is empty; status unknown.

Historic Beulah Cemetery is located at the very end of Martin Luther King, Jr., Blvd., right next to the Vicksburg National Military Park. The cemetery was formed in 1884 and is still in occasional use. 

"The cemetery is the final resting place for over 5500 members of the most prominent black families in Vicksburg, including ancestors of almost every native black in the Vicksburg area. The cemetery documents the existence of generations of people for whom otherwise there might be no surviving material available." 

The site was overgrown and largely neglected for decades, but an AmeriCorps team and other volunteer groups cleaned the site, and it is now on City of Vicksburg maintenance. It is a quiet place for photography. For more information, see http://beulahcemetery.org.

Photographs: Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic camera with the 35mm ƒ/3.5 Super-Takumar lens. All photographs were tripod-mounted.
Film: Kodak Tri-X 400, developed in Kodak HC-110 developer.
Light measurement: Gossen Luna-Pro SBC light meter.
Scanner: Plustek 7600i using Silverfast Ai software, scanned at 3600 dpi.

I would be glad to hear from readers who use classic cameras.

Our Man in Havana 5: Habana Centro in film

Habana Centro is the part of town west of the Paseo de Prado and west of the El Capitolio. Being a kilometer or so from the harbor, you see fewer tourists than in Habana Viejo, so this is a great area to see the local residents and explore the eclectic architecture.

Typical Habana Centro scene, 112 Escobar

As I wrote earlier, Havana is a glorious display of faded architectural extravagance. Six decades of no maintenance in a humid climate, and almost every house has filth, spalling concrete, imploding floors, dripping pipes, and dingy balconies with hanging laundry. Toilets are as bad as Istanbul (but not as revolting as Sofia). All is superimposed on what was once extravagant art deco, art nouveau, postwar modernist, and Spanish colonial architecture with Grecian elements. Havana is amazing because this nostalgic luxury coincides with extreme poverty. People live in these grand faded townhouses, putting up with dingy stairwells, peeling paint, and crumbling facades and balconies.

The following pictures are from semi-random walks around Centro. Please read the captions for the locations and click any picture to enlarge to 1600 pixels wide.

Cuban caryatids at 206 Virtudes ("a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting an entablature on her head")

The corner of Havana and Blanco Streets.

325 Animas and its cheerful inhabitants. Note the exposed steel beams under the balcony - might they be corroded?

452 Animas. The street, like everything else, needed a bit of repair.

Hanging around at 156 Campanario.

Hanging around at 162 Campanario.

Havana and Virtudes. It looks like the corner building once had big windows, but possibly the facade is still original. 

The domino champions, 114 Lealtad. Note how they are supporting their plywood table on their knees.

Finally, a vegetable/grocery store at 519 Empedrado. We were surprised how few food stores served these neighborhoods, at least where we  explored. The produce did not look too appetizing. 

Well, Che is here in the grocery store to remind you that the revolution is all-important. 519 Empedrado. 

Another rather unappealing (revolting) vegetable stand at 313 San Miguel. 

An occasional empty lot means whatever structure was once on the site collapsed and the debris was taken away. 265 San Miguel. 

A common sight: a bunch of guys fixing a car. 216 Campanario. 

All photographs taken with a Leica M2 35mm rangefinder camera with (mostly) the 35mm f/2.0 Summicron lens. Film: Kodak Tri-X 400 film, exposed at ISO 320 and developed in Kodak HC-110 developer.

Older Havana articles:

https://worldofdecay.blogspot.com/2017/02/our-man-in-havana-4-habana-viejo-in-film.html

https://worldofdecay.blogspot.com/2017/02/our-man-in-havana-3-view-from-top.html

https://worldofdecay.blogspot.com/2017/02/our-man-in-havana-2-on-waterfront.html

https://worldofdecay.blogspot.com/2017/02/our-man-in-havana-1-hershey-train.html

Our Man in Havana 4: Habana Viejo in film

Habana Viejo, or Old Havana, is one of the most amazing displays of architectural and decorative wealth that has slipped into urban decay that you are likely to see anywhere. I rate Havana up there with Rangoon, Detroit, Palermo, and Kathmandu as extreme examples of what happens when you neglect your infrastructure for decades (Republicans in USA: are you paying attention? Do you comprehend?).

Because of the contrasts and ironies, Havana is a visual delight. I highly recommended it for photographers - but do it the real way, use a film camera. For the pictures below, I used my Leica M2 35mm camera with Kodak Tri-X film to simulate a 1950s photojournalist look.

Let's take a semi-random walk through Havana Viejo. We have already briefly looked at the waterfront in a previous article (click the link). The photograph above is the Terminal Sierra Maestre, where cruise ships unload.

This is a block of somewhat rough apartment buildings on the Avenida de Bélgica, across the street from the Estación Central de Ferrocarriles (the central train station). To get there, I took a tricycle rickshaw, pumped by a very friendly driver. One of my maps showed a home of Jose Marti, but I am not sure if it is in the scene or on a side street.

On Teniente Rey, we saw school groups being taken to museums. All through the country, school children wear neat, clean uniforms and are mostly well-behaved. Education has been a high priority for the government.

At the Plaza de San Francisco, plenty of local folks hang out along with tourists.

Near the Casa Oswaldo Guayasamín (an Ecuadorian painter who was a friend of Fidel), there were interesting patterns of light and shadow.

Empedrado is a major road that leads west from the Castillo de la Real Fuerza at the waterfront as far as the Prado. The people-watching is great, and, as you can see, selfies have come to Havana.

Brazil (also known as Teniente Rey) also runs east-west and ends at the neoclassical El Capitolio. These people were waiting for a pharmacy or possibly a clinic.

The Ballet Nacional de Cuba is in a big hulking building on the corner of the Paseo del Prado and Colon. I heard tap dancers through the windows. 

The Paseo del Prado (also shown on maps as the Paseo de Marti) is a tree-shaded boulevard with a broad pedestrian walk in the center. Everyone goes there to be seen and to watch. I saw mothers with their little girls in tutus, nuns, guys on skateboards, chess-players, and musicians. A 10 or 12-piece orchestra was set up on chairs and playing first-rate rhumbas and dance music. Elderly couples were gliding across the paving blocks. The grand architecture that lines the Paseo is a visual treat.

Some hints: Havana appears to be completely safe for walking and exploring. We did not feel any bad vibes. Everyone we met was friendly. Beware of difficult walking conditions on cobblestones and bumpy sidewalks. Watch for holes (sometimes big ones) in the sidewalk or street. I recommend low hiking boots. If you are a tourist, you can use restrooms in the better hotels, and if it is hot, sit and enjoy the air conditioning.

Camera notes: I took these photographs with a Leica M2 rangefinder camera with 35mm and 50mm Summicron lenses using Kodak Tri-X film. I developed the film in Kodak HC-110 developer, dilution H, for 10 min at 68° F. I scanned the negatives with a Plustek 7600i film scanner using SilverFast software.

Movie note: Our Man In Havana is Graham Green's 1958 novel, which was set in Cuba before the Revolution. It is about a vacuum cleaner salesman who may be a British spy, or maybe he isn't. The movie version (directed by Carol Reed of The Third Man fame) was filmed exactly as the revolution was underway. Fidel visited the set, and there is a rumor that he tried to get a date with Maureen O'Hara. He liked American actresses, and apparently many of them liked him.

Maureen O'Hara in Havana during filming of Our Man in Havana in 1959 (from IMDb)

Fidel with the cast of Our Man in Havana