A mechanic’s workshop is the only sign of life left in the building
“This building had been declared uninhabitable for a long time but the need is great,” say the residents of Factoría 70.
HAVANA TIMES – The bustle coming out of number 70 Factoria Street between Corrales and Apodaca, in Old Havana, has stopped for days. On January 31, the almost hundred people who lived in the building were evicted due to the danger of collapse, a threat they had been living with for years after illegally occupying the building.
With the façade blackened by humidity alongside some areas of yellow ocher color that remind us of its former splendor, the three-story building with its stately bracing barely preserves part of the original ceilings. “This had been declared uninhabitable for a long time but the need is great,” acknowledges Carmita, a neighbor who from the opposite sidewalk fears every day “that this ruin will fall forward and cause misfortune.”
According to the woman, “all these bricks that you see down here in the doors and windows were to wall up the entrance.” In this way, the authorities of the Housing Directorate wanted to prevent the building from filling up with inhabitants again after the neighbors who lived there were evacuated when the structure became very unstable. “But they didn’t do it well, people found a way to get in.”
Despite the balconies without railings, the orphaned door and window thresholds lacking blinds, necessity meant that in a short time the hubbub of families, the cries of children and the barking of