Like much of Cuba’s old and ruined colonial relics, Old Havana’s Plaza Vieja, literally meaning “Old Plaza”, underwent restorations ordered by UNESCO-backed Cuban government agencies, beginning in the late 1990s. Residents who had spent decades dealing with collapsing ceilings and most fundamentally, a deeply damaged water system, were “invited” to relocate with the promise of a new home. After many years when those who surrendered their apartments were still living in “temporary” facilities outside Havana, those who held out continued to do so. They also took to using the restored massive water fountain to collect water and wash clothes as Cubans had done in colonial times. Horrified, officials quickly installed a 12-foot-tall metal fence around the fountain, perhaps the only one of its kind! The fence stayed up until the first years of Raúl Castro’s rule, as explained and illustrated in images below for this series.
