The historic swimming pool of the Hotel Nacional de Cuba has been demolished

The Hotel Nacional de Cuba’s historic swimming pool was demolished this week as part of an investment being made in this tourist facility, which was declared a National Monument in May 1998.

Artistic coordinator Abelardo Mena was upset by the decision and posted a photo on Facebook of the condition the pool was left in after the demolition.

Mina wrote, “The violation committed by Hotel Nacional was confirmed in the work carried out in the northern swimming pool. The work was stopped and the National Institute of Urban Planning and Urbanization was notified of the application of the procedures currently in force.” .

In another comment, the expert indicated that the pool was decided to remain as a historical relic in 1989, because the personalities who stayed in the hotel bathed in it, hence the confusion of the decision to demolish it completely.

“It didn’t take any such action,” he said.

Luis Miguel Diaz Sanchez, director of the Hotel Nacional de Cuba, announced at the end of last year to the official agency Latin presswhich would assume an investment process, which would include the aforementioned complex.

“The capital investment for the historic swimming pool and the complete remodeling of the buffet restaurant are being prepared, to start in January 2023 and finish by May,” the manager said, without providing further details of the process.

Cybercopa He wrote to the hotel management, to the Gran Caribe company, and to the office of the City Historian of Havana, to find out more details of what happened and whether in the process they had advice from staff qualified for management from the heritage business; But they have not yet responded to the messages sent.

he Cuba National Hotel Opened in 1930, this eclectic Spanish-style building rises on Taganana Hill and in front of the Malecon, overlooking Havana’s port and part of the city.

It was designed by New York-based architecture studio McKim, Med and White, Funded by National City Bank in New York, and built in fourteen months by the American engineering firm Purdy and Henderson.

For more than 90 years, it has hosted important guests such as Winston Churchill, The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Jimmy Carter, Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, Mickey Mantell, Johnny Weissmuller, Buster Keaton, Georges Negrete, Agustin Lara, Rocky Marciano, Tyrone Power and Romulo Gallegos, Errol Flynn, John Wayne, Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, Marlon Brando, Ernest Hemingway, Yuri Gagarin, and Alexander Fleming, among others.

This hotel has also been the scene of controversial events, such as Denied access to Cuban citizens, who wanted to enter their facilities; also “Romantic Dinner” sold for more than three thousand pesos during 2021the most difficult year of the epidemic in Cuba and where people quickly became poor with the implementation of the mission of the decree.