CARISTAS

   This is a 1952 Chevrolet Styleline. Sometime in the last 57 years, it has lost the five ridges or teeth that were added that year to the centre horizontal member of the Chevy grille. Buyers in 1952 could choose from 26 exterior colours (single shades and two-tone combinations). Dunno if this light green was one of those original colours, but you have to admit, it's nice.

    That famous occupational holidayer would want to make Cuba a stop. On an island with spotty train service, limited in-country flights and low private car ownership, the bus is a transportation mainstay – so there are plenty to see.     But, as with Cuba’s automobile fleet, it’s the range of vintage and origin that really pulls the cord. In a day’s travel, our busman might come across a modern articulated urban carrier, an old GM Silverside, a repurposed Quebec yelllow bus still bearing its “Ecoliers” markings ... even a venerable Leyland Olympic. Apart from Havana’s municipal Yutongs, the new and shiny stuff is usually reserved for tourists and their convertible pesos. Cubans get the older machines.     These three veterans carry resort workers. Above is a Cuba-assembled   Girón , bu ilt under licence from Hungary’s Ikarus company. The yellow bus is a DAF from the Netherlands, which has sent many decommissioned buses to Cub...

    The Big Deal in the Cuban economy isn’t nickel or tourism (and certainly not sugar, tobacco or coffee). The Big Deal is petróleo . And not as export or other revenue-earner, but as money-costing import.    So why, at this point in the Oil Age, should Cuba be different than most other countries?    Cuba does produce oil, but the product of its offshore wells is heavily sulphurous, and even then not enough to meet its needs. The rest is supplied by Venezuela at below market rates (in exchange for Cuban medical missions and technical training), but the bill still adds to a trade deficit that in 2008 jumped by 65 per cent.     According to a report in The Economist , the addition of “thousands of thirsty diesel generators” – the Cuban government’s response to the island’s infamous power failures – is a big part of a sharp rise in demand for oil. To cut costs, the government ordered that air conditioning be restricted to the five hott...

    Photos of Fidel Castro looking fat ‘n’ sassy – or at least smiling, and appearing to have gained weight – surfaced last week on the retired (sort-of) leader’s 83rd birthday.     Their source? Not some Cuban government agency, but the U.S.-based Pastors for Peace , which in July met with Fidel and brother Raul on the arrival of the group’s latest caravan of embargo-defying aid.    The interdenominational group works for social justice throughout Latin America, and considers the U.S. restrictions on trade with Cuba “immoral and unjust.” Since 1992, it has delivered more than 3,000 tons of medical equipment, hurricane reconstruction supplies, powdered milk and other aid. Its caravans of brightly painted, decommissioned school buses – looking like stretched versions of ’60s-era hippy vans – wend through Canada and the United States before crossing the border to Mexico for eventual transfer to their destination.     The buses re...

    The Godfather Part II notwithstanding, Havana in the 1950s was hardly a hotbed of Mafia activity, reports Peter Moruzzi in Havana Before Castro: When Cuba was a Tropical Playground .     Yes, organized crime figures, notably money guy Meyer Lansky, were present, but mainly to protect Mob investments in Havana’s casinos by ensuring they were run in a reputable fashion – just as the Mafia made sure the early Las Vegas gambling sites were seen as safe and always above board.     And if you control casinos, who needs to rob or extort? Better to maintain a low profile.     Whether it was Lansky and his cronies or others, however, someone was buying a lot of Cadillacs. Havana is said to have been home to the world’s busiest Cadillac dealership in the 1950s. I don’t know the source for this claim, but I do know Cadillacs remain a common (and enjoyable) sight on Cuba’s streets.     These photos from Havana Bef...

    Something called " Classics Illustrated Blog Archive " liked the previous entry so much, it decided to rip it off without attribution. The process, however, apparently involved translating the entry into German and back to English through one of those automated programs. Thus: "Full chapters are committed to the Riviera, pipedream chuck of mobster Meyer Lansky, and the effective Habana Hilton, renamed the Habana Libre by the revolutionaries who took power damned months after it opened."   Well said!

Riviera Hotel in Havana, 2009    Cuba’s much-photographed De Sotos and Cadillacs are famous reminders of the wealth and style that could be found in the country – or at least, in parts of it – in the 1950s. But another, less-heralded legacy of that period is the Modern architecture that would take form in such bold structures as the Arcos de Cristal indoor cabaret at the Tropicana nightclub and the Havana Riviera hotel that stands proud over the Malecon.    Strongly influenced by Miami Modernism from across the Straits of Florida, the Havana Modern school nonetheless remains distinctive for its fusion of clean, Atomic Age shapes and the deep eaves, interior courtyards and other time-tested design strategies for coping with a tropical climate.    American writer Peter Moruzzi believes Havana Modern merits as much celebration as the remarkable colonial buildings that have earned La Habana Vieja (Old Havana) designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. ...