El Colegio de Belen (Belen School).
Fidel Castro was a student at El Colegio de Belen in Havana, and later
paid them back by taking over the school and closing it in 1961.
Here is an excerpt fro an article in the Miami Herald on the 150th. Anniversary of the Colegio de Belen: "In 1854,
the Real Colegio de Belen opened its doors to 40 students for the first time in Havana after Queen Isabel II of Spain
issued its royal charter. Officially signed over to Jesuit priests in 1898, Belen steadily grew.
By the time 80 communist soldiers occupied the school's campus for Castro in January 1961, it had 60 acres with
1,200 students. On Sept. 17 of that year, 26 Jesuit priests -- expelled by Castro -- boarded the Covadonga ship and headed for Miami. The Jesuits immediately opened a small campus for fewer than 200 students on the fourth floor
of the Centro Hispano Católico at the Gesu Church, in downtown. The following year, they moved to a warehouse
on the corner of Southwest Eighth Street and Seventh Avenue." On September 14, 1981 the school moved to its new
30 acres facilities at 500 SW 127th. Ave in Miami with an enrollment of 598 students. Now there are more than 1,000 students from 27 different countries attending Belen.
Colegio de Belen (Havana) Belen Jesuit Preparatory School (Miami)
El Edificio FOCSA (The FOCSA Building)
The FOCSA (Fomentos de Obras y Construcciones S. A) is considered one of the marvels of Cuban
engineering. Built in record time, just 28 months, the FOCSA was located on a square block between
17, 19, M and N streets in El Vedado. Construction began on February of 1954 and the building was
completed in June of 1956. The building has 39 floors, 30 floors for apartments and 9 floors for
multiple use, including a movie theater, stores, supermarket and even a TV studio.
The building, 397 feet high, was made of concrete and at the time was the second tallest concrete
building in the world.
The typical floor has 13 apartments, 5 apartments with 3 bedrooms and maid's quarters and 8 with
2 bedrooms and maid's quarters. The 3 bedroom apartments had a price of 21,500 pesos and the other
ones were 17,500 pesos each. The price would go up 30 pesos for each higher floor.
In the 1990s the FOCSA, like many other buildings in Havana, turned into an eyesore. The higher floors
became vulture nests. In 2000, there was an accident involving one of the elevators, when one of the
elevator's cable snapped, killing one person and injuring 3 others, click here to see further details: http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/cuba/elevator.htm
Many of the families still living at the FOCSA had to use the staircase to go down because they were
afraid to use the elevators that were still running.
In the last few years the Castro regime has begun repairing the FOCSA. There are rumors that it plans
to begin selling the apartments to wealthy foreigners.
The photos below are courtesy of Mr. Alberto Quiroga whose parents were the owners of the Palladium Jewelry located at the FOCSA:
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