The Yara movie theater and the central building of the Cuban Radio and Television Institute (ICRT)
How many Havana residents can say they have never walked down La Rampa? I am sure that, apart from babies, very few. That stretch of 23rd Street going from the very same Malecón (seaside drive) to L Street is the beating heart of our city because, along its half a kilometer long, countless events attracting the attention of Cubans and also of people from overseas take place.
La Rampa is a hive of activity day and night. Cultural and recreational centers, from the iconic Coppelia ice cream parlor to the cubanita.cu cafeteria of Infanta and 23rd streets, provide a haunting and luminous world to those who venture into its steep hill.
Along this street, major commercial centers, companies, travel agencies and airlines and even four ministries are located.
The central building of the Cuban Radio and Television Institute (ICRT), the Yara and Rampa movie theaters, the Cuba Pavilion exhibition area, where cultural events take place and the national headquarters of the Hermanos Saiz Association; the International Press Center; the Habana Libre Hotel; iconic restaurants like El Mandarin and Polinesio, and several clubs, mark the cultural and recreational importance of this sector of Havana, excluding others located in its proximity, like the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, an emblematic Cuban hotel.
According to researcher Ciro Bianchi, the owner of the plots bordering the road that later became a populous artery was called Bartolomé Arlet, who built his home in an area near to what is now known today as the ICRT building. When he died in the early 1940s he left a niece as his heiress, but a clause of the will prevented her from disposing of this land until 1975.
A legal trick, supported by Colonel Eleuterio Pedraza second strongman of the Fulgencio Batista government, annulled such condition and the girl became rich overnight.
Bianchi tells an Italian mobster and fascist was one of the first ones to buy a plot on which he built a car agency, in fact a facade for one of his illegal businesses in Havana.
But it was Goar Mestre, the almighty mogul of Cuban radio and television, who gave a decisive impetus to the development of the area, when he constructed there the building that housed Radiocentro, today the ICRT, from where the first commercial television broadcast on the island was aired.
As you can see, dear reader, the origins of La Rampa splash around in the dark mud of corruption, which was quite common in those turbulent times that disappeared in January, 1959.
La Rampa is now a place to go for a walk and socialize, watch a good movie, enjoy a tasty ice cream or take a cocktail in the semi-darkness of a club, to the sound of good music. Or to enjoy a good exhibition or a fair at the Cuba Pavilion and then go down the street and sit by the Malecón (seafront) to be caressed by the fresh air coming from the Caribbean.
If you are of the few residents of the capital that has not walked this iconic piece of road is clear, apart from babies of course, do not miss the opportunity to do so, preferably at the time when the sea breeze cools the atmosphere and the traffic lights do naughty winks to the night spirits of the most cosmopolitan city of Cuba.
23rd streets and N street
The Cuba Pavilion, headquarters of the Hermanos Saiz Association
