A humble area with a lot of history, Jesús María is one of the most popular neighborhoods in Havana. Its origins go back to the colonial period, when it grew as a hamlet in the town outside the walls until it was fully integrated into the city.
Its name is really Jesús María y José and it owes it to the hermitage of that denomination built in 1753 on Calle Real in the neighborhood, today named Revillagigedo. It is said that a black woman named Amalia, godmother of Ñáñigos, revolutionaries and persecuted slaves, lived in that artery, and in honor of whom the inhabitants of the place are known as “amalianos”.
Although many stigmatized Jesús María as a neighborhood of criminals, thieves and pimps, relevant figures of Cuban history and culture lived on its streets, such as General Quintín Banderas or the musicians Claudio José Brindis de Salas and Barbarito Diez.
La Jardinera, one of the most famous Havana carnival troupes, was also founded there, and institutions such as the Unión Fraternal society —whose honorary president was Juan Gualberto Gomez— and the Athens Club, both for blacks and mulattoes, although with differences in the economic power of their membership, and the Mail Carriers Association.
El Callejón del Suspiro, the monument to Father Manuel de Jesús Dobal, parish priest of the Church of Jesus, María y José; the old thermoelectric plant of Tallapiedra and the “elevados” of the railway, are other iconic places of this old Havana neighborhood, hit, like many other places in the city, by deficiencies and the passage of time.
This week our photojournalist Otmaro Rodríguez was on its streets, who offers us his snapshots as a reflection of the present of one of the emblematic neighborhoods of the Cuban capital.
