14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Cienfuegos, 10 August 10, 2024 — Each city on the Island with a certain economic accommodation had a Ten Cent store during Cuba’s Republican years. Built many times to order, designed by foreign architects and managed by American chains, those retail stores used to be the center of boulevards and shopping avenues. What has become of them after 1959 would horrify their former owners.
The Ten Cent of Cienfuegos is no exception. Two floors in an eclectic style and with monochrome stained glass windows, the old shop, located on the city’s boulevard – formerly San Fernando Street – is now a danger for pedestrians who pass by. The store, which has gone through several names, from Variedade Cienfuegos to the current Variedades Cimex, has been surrounded for months by a metal fence that prevents people from approaching the building, which is in danger of collapse.
Built in 1912, the former Ten Cent was owned by the American company F. W. Woolworth Company, dedicated to the sale of retail items. Since its nationalization after the coming to power of Fidel Castro, the centenary building has undergone very little, if any, maintenance. When the facade began to lose pieces and the humidity was already eating away the walls, Cimex tried to carry out a repair in 2017, with a view to the city’s bicentennial, and invested two million pesos.
The old Ten Cent was owned by the American F.W. Woolworth Company, dedicated to the sale of retail items at a low price
“That great restoration they promised came to nothing. The little they did was of poor quality, either because the resources were stolen, or be
