Nobody Is Welcome At The Hotel New York

Nobody Is Welcome At The Hotel New York / 14ymedio, Luz Escobar

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 2 May 2016 – The roots of a bush have
grown up between the stairs and weeds hang over the marquee. The Hotel
New York, a few yards from the Capitol Building in Havana, is the very
picture of abandonment. For more than a decade its doors have been
closed to the public and since then no strains of orchestra music are
heard, no sounds of glasses clinking in the bar, no smooth sliding of
suitcase wheels across a polished floor. The "Big Apple" in the heart of
the capital city is rotten.

Until a few years ago, brass letters told passersby on Dragones Street,
between Amistad and Aguila, that the air-conditioned accommodations had
been built in 1919. The building was originally the property of Jose H.
Martines, a rich rancher who spared no expense in its design, while the
project was carried out by the firm Tella y Cuento, Architects and
Engineers. The building was leased to Jose A. Morgado to manage as a hotel.

That story can barely be glimpsed in the ruins that remain, although
some of the lost glamor remains in the memories of the hotel's oldest
neighbors. Eduardo, a retiree who proudly shows his ID identifying him
as a "combatant," has lived in the area since 1959. He tells how, when
they closed the hotel at the end of the last century, "there were many
who took away the bathroom fixtures and even the tiles."

According to the old man, it was for that reason that the authorities in
the area "bricked up all the entrances with cement and blocks." But the
incursions have continued and now, "it has been converted into a public
restroom." Barely a single Venetian blind remains, the metal railings
around the interior balconies have been torn off, and not a single piece
of glass that used to crown the doors is left.


There is a rumor in the neighborhood that the City of Havana Historian,
Eusebio Leal, rejected several offers from European companies to repair
the Hotel New York. (14ymedio)
To the left of the building, where before there was a recreational area
for guests, there is now one of those cafes where the underworld reigns.
Some tourists approach attracted by the music and end up as "prey" for
the agile denizens who populate the place. The offers can range from an
out-of-tune bolero, to a round of beers paid for by the naïve visitor,
to the most sophisticated sexual acrobats.

From that hovel one can see almost 100 rooms that sheltered the guests
staying there, arranged around two parallel courtyards. The press of the
era reported on the luxurious furnishings and an elegant ground floor
restaurant, in the style of the grand American hotels.

At the entrance, embedded in the granite floor that has resisted the
neglect, you can barely make out the initials of New York. On some of
the stairs of the stately entrance the complete name remains, standing
out amid the grime.

Across the street a modest café sells juices and snacks. The employee
says the building "is about to fall down and it could kill someone." She
remembers when it closed "several men came in trucks and took away
everything of value inside." Later, it waited to be restored by the
Office of the Historian of the City, but it was delayed so long that
"there's no longer anything to save," opines the lady.

There is a rumor in the neighborhood that the City Historian, Eusebio
Leal, rejected several offers from European companies to repair the
Hotel New York. However, despite several calls to his office, it was not
possible to confirm this information. "No one was willing to pay the
amount he was asking for," says Eduardo, an elderly combatant whose
wrinkled face resembles the cracks in the wall in the hotel. "They
wanted so much that no one was interested," he says.

The façade, which is still impressive despite the deterioration, has
four rows of windows and independent balconies. Five large Corinthian
pilasters give the exterior wall a touch of grandeur, and a ledge on the
4th story was built when the building was expanded. The whole place
seems like a little scale model of its gigantic cousins in Manhattan.

Gone is the time when you had to book in advance to spend a night in the
Hotel New York. Today, only the rats fight over the space with the
tramps, who have managed to introduce several holes in order to spend
the nights in its dark interior.

At all the "Accountability Meetings" held in the area – a routine of
taking stock of the achievements of the Revolution – residents argue
that the building has become a focus of disease and a danger to health.
Nothing that makes the People's Power delegate flinch in an area filled
with buildings on the point of collapse.

Scattered around the city, objects that were part of the Hotel New York
adorn the room of an apartment, are resold in the informal market or end
up in the trash. An old custodian of the place keeps a screen and an
antique grandfather clock that he claims he saved from the looting. "One
day when they reopen the hotel, I will return them," he says with a sly
smile, but nobody believes that music will once again echo within those
walls.

Source: Nobody Is Welcome At The Hotel New York / 14ymedio, Luz Escobar
– Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/nobody-is-welcome-at-the-hotel-new-york-14ymedio-luz-escobar/