2014 declaration of detente with the US, Leal’s government-driven restoration of Old Havana gained momentum with the opening of hundreds of private businesses from elegant restaurant to art galleries that filled with tourists as visits to the country soared.
That became especially important when communist Cuba embraced foreign tourism en masse after the disbanding of the Soviet Union and the loss of its billions of dollars in annual subsidies to the island brought the economy to the brink of total collapse.Īfter a series of nationwide economic reforms and the Dec.
11, 1942, Leal earned a doctorate in historical sciences from the University of Havana, honing his skills as an intellectual entrepreneur who recognized that the resurrection of the city’s historic district could be a moneymaker. “But if that were the case, we wouldn’t feel embarrassed to be seen as romantics in times that are so apocalyptic.”īorn in Havana on Sept. “To call it reconstruction of something that seemed dead and buried may draw dirty looks and dismissals that ours is a romantic crusade,” Leal wrote in a city bulletin in 2010. Others would lodge complaints about their living situation or praise him for reviving Old Havana.
Leal and his restoration efforts became so famous along the crowded streets of Havana that it often felt like he was holding court when he appeared in public, usually in his trademark, simple gray dress shirts and slacks.Įlderly women would tell Leal that the water that had stopped working in their apartment was back on thanks to him. Eusebio Leal Spengler, who oversaw the transformation of crumbling Old Havana to an immaculately restored colonial tourist attraction, becoming the de-facto mayor of the historic city center and one of the nation’s most prominent public intellectuals, has died.
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