In the early spring of 1997, this building collapsed just seconds after historian Dr. Manuel Barcia passed it while biking to the National Archive of Cuba. It was located on the corner of Obispo Street, the principal pedestrian-only thoroughfare connecting the seat of the Spanish colonial government to the monument of José Martí in Havana’s republican-era city center. Mercifully, nobody was inside or nearby at the time. Yet building collapses like this one have been a feature of urban life since the late 1960s when Communist prohibitions on the sale and rental of private properties also banned citizens from hiring each other to carry out urgently needed home repairs. Instead, the state required Cubans to register a need for reconstruction, roof repair or plumbing problems with state agencies. There they languished for years on lists while national leaders ignored them, rewarded loyalists with new and refurbished homes or prioritized construction materials for political projects such as the building of tunnels near the University of Havana. (Modeled after Vietnam’s war-era bomb shelters against the unlikely chance of Yanqui aggression–by then at least, these tunnels were built by Communist Youth brigades in the early years of the Special Period.) In 1994, new post-Soviet laws suddenly reversed course and required citizens to be responsible for their own housing repairs at a time when they were economically least capable of doing so. The self-serving nature of these laws combined with decades of state neglect to ignite and maintain a sense of public outrage over housing still palpable today.
