Funded through government loans approved by the dictator Fulgencio Batista for his friends and cronies in the mid-1950s, the “Carlos III Market” represented the epitome of modernity. As one of Latin America’s first malls, Batista pointed to it as evidence of his administration’s commitment to “development”. Under Communist rule, El Mercado Carlos III served several purposes, although since the 1980s it was mostly an empty shell of bare shelves lined with dust. Reopened under Raúl Castro’s “management” a decade ago, the mall is now one of the only places where many household goods and foods considered basic outside of Cuba can be obtained in hard, foreign currency. Meant to feature air conditioning—a new invention in the 1950s—the mall was not designed for conditions typical of the Communist era. Unlike Puerto Rico where people who can’t afford AC in their homes often flood malls as if they were public parks, shoppers drawn from the ranks of foreign visitors and the island’s rich political elite have to contend with at least one aspect of reality that all Cubans share: the heat. Centro Habana, November 2011.
