Saturday, August 11, 2007

The Ruins of Havana

It is impossible to ignore the dangerously undermaintained shape of a serious number of La Habana's buildings ― many of which collapse or become uninhabitable and unusable each year.
Theodore Dalrymple’s essay Why Havana Had to Die addresses this more depressing view rather eloquently. Dalrymple writes of ‘the Ruins of Havana’ and bluntly reminds us that, “Forty-three years of totalitarian dictatorship have left the city of Havana ― one of the most beautiful in the world ― suspended in a peculiar state halfway between preservation and destruction.” This is a great read!

2 comments:

Cuba Companioni said...

great article, roy everyone should read this to see how havana serves as the starkest reminder to what criminal neglect can do to a wonder of the world.

Roy Llera said...

I just read it again and it is fantastic writing! I once thought that Castro had saved Habana Vieja from development...I was wrong he's just destroying any trace of the Cuba before him that built this once grand city.