In the start of March, a fellow student and I began to take weekly walks throughout the city. We’ve explored abandoned ferry terminals, hotels and apartment buildings. Our favorites thus far have been an old housing complex in Playa (a neighborhood just west of the city) and an old loading dock in Havana Vieja. The apartments looked as if they were built following the revolution but the project was never completed. It was hard to find out what exactly we were looking at or what this building once was, but, because of the lack of surveillance and any real fence or wall surrounding the area, we were able to explore ourselves.
Our loading dock exploration was a different experience. As we were walking along a grand terminal lining the water, we noticed the amount of windows that had been knocked out, the rubble that lined the outside and chipped painted covering the facad. We spotted a hole in the gate and dove under, escaping the traffic and busy road we’d been walking down. After walking around the main floor and searching for a way to rise up to the next level, a worker approached us and asked how he could help us. With a somewhat hesitant response of “just exploring” he followed up with a demand that we leve the premise. Following a few complaints and a brief explanation of how we got into the building and why we were there and who we were, he then allowed us to continue walking through the building. We learned that it was built in the late 20’s but later abandoned in the 80’s. It’s hard to describe exactly what our experience was there so I’ll leave you with a few photos to get a better sense for yourself. The first section our from the apartment complex and latter is an album from the terminal.
Enjoy!!
