Of the four signs legible to passersby on Calle Belascoaín, a main thoroughfare of Centro Habana, when I took this picture in 1995, only one advertised for a still-functioning business: the rest (including a flower shop and record store) had been shuttered decades earlier when Fidel Castro decreed the nationalization of all remaining small, privately owned businesses in March 1968. I took the picture because the fact that the Communist government had taken over these businesses, yet neglected to ever remove their original signs befuddled me; it still does. What were these street signs supposed to witness? What were they supposed to say? HAVANA, JUNE 1995
