havana's renaissance by Juliet Barclay

A great deal has been done in Old Havana but there is still a quite staggering amount left to be tackled and funds are in short supply. However, no-one in their right mind would advocate an indiscriminate opening-up of the area to general and foreign investment. The longer the current investment situation continues, the longer the Cubans will have to consolidate their enviable achievements in Havana's restoration, to strengthen the Habaneros' sense of individuality and to fortify their cultural bastions against the stifling blanket of North American homogeneity which is already flapping threateningly in their direction. As Hugh Thomas quoted on the frontispiece of his monumental Cuba, the Pursuit of Freedom: 'Yet, Freedom! Yet thy banner, torn, but flying/Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind.'

'Stiltwalkers of Old Havana' whose task it is to stride like gaudy beribboned giraffes between the groups to activate each performance, accompanied by a running, shouting crowd of thoroughly overexcited children. Balancing the requirements of visitors and residents is vital to the success of the restoration of Old Havana. It is an appallingly overcrowded area of the city where many people live in very poor conditions, sharing completely inadequate sanitary facilities; housing is thus absolutely first priority with the planners and architects of the Office of the City Historian. However, without the income from tourism very little can be (Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, canto iv, stanza 98)

Although the city has never experienced attack by the forces of man, those of time have wrought havoc with plaster, metal, glass and wood... It is often the case that only the facades of noble old buildings have survived relatively intact; with collapsing floors throughout their interiors there is little left to be saved internally