The mural that has been decorating for years the empty space left by a landslide on Teniente Rey street almost on the corner with Monserrate, next to the Kilómetro Cero paladar, has deteriorated in a very short time. The portrait of the former City Historian, Eusebio Leal, accompanied by the words “Guard your streets my steps, Havana of my loves, because I have not left. I will live in you forever,” looked colorful just a year ago.
Today, a one-eyed Loyalist, due to peeling paint, seems to offer the passerby a grimace of disgust.
Eusebio Leal was the great architect of the restoration -largely with the help of public funds from other countrieslike Spain– from Old Havana and the continuation of the work of Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring at the head of the Office of the Historian.
The portrait of who was City Historian, accompanied by the words “Guard your streets my steps, Havana of my loves, because I have not left. I will live in you forever”, looked colorful just a year ago
Under his command, that state instance became a powerful cultural and tourist instrument. He was in charge of, for example, the Habaguanex company, which managed some 300 tourist facilities, including restaurants, shops, markets, cafeterias and accommodation (with a total of 546 rooms). Among them, by the way, the unfortunate Saratoga Hotel, destroyed by an explosion on May 6, 2022.
The splendor ended in 2016, when the Ministry of the Armed Forces delivered Habaguanex to the Gaviota group, belonging to the all-powerful Business Administration Group (Gaesa), then directed by Raúl Castro’s former son-in-law, the now deceased Luis Alberto Rodríguez López-Calleja.
Since then, everything was in decline in the historic center of the capital, where many inhabitants feel orphaned with the death, on July 31, 2020, of the historian who gave him some specific benefits such as distributing better snacks in primary schools.
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