The Plaza del Vapor was a covered market in Havana, it was completed in 1835. Its name derives from its builder Francisco Martí who became later the impresario of the Tacón Theatre and who had a monopoly of fish trade in the city. Martí had a painting placed against a wall from a bar of the ship El Neptuno, the first vapor (steam ship) that made regular round trips between Havana and Matanzas. "It was the image of that ship that ended up naming the building." From the Plaza del Vapor, Martí sold 50% of all the lottery tickets in Cuba.

History

In the early morning of September 7, 1872 a fire destroyed the previous mercado de Tacón and it was necessary to install a provisional market in the Campo de Marte. The Public Works Advisory Board met on April 29, 1874, and the decision was made to replace the old market in the same place with the name Plaza de Tacón. The fruit stalls, the little shops, the clothing stores, the fur shops and a thousand other establishments that adorned the street gave each side of the building its particular character. With some exceptions, the shopkeepers invented new ways to attract customers, otherwise nothing remarkable happened in the Plaza de Vapor during the working hours; as the night fell, one found the animation of the city, the electric lights, the silence on the interior courtyard and the darkness. Andrés Stanislas Romay writes about the Plaza del Vapor:"Meanwhile the animation reigns in the inner enclosure of the square, that as by charm you see transformed into a kind of fair. If you do not want to be a philosopher, the diversity of physiognomy, costumes, conversations, will serve as a distraction, or you will contemplate with satisfaction the golden pineapple, the purple mangoes, the velvety caimito and other thousand rich fruits of the tropical fields. But behold, this agitation gradually subsides, the concurrence disappears and with it the square is almost deserted. Do you think that this building is then totally destitute of interest? No,: it is then transformed into a temple of love, of that subtle spirit that penetrates whenever man puts his mark and who does not disdain to visit the darkest shelter at the same time as the most majestic palace?

Chinatown

El Barrio Chino was Havana's Chinatown, located in the area of the Plaza de Vapor. It was once Latin America's largest Chinese community,Havana's Chinatown – The once largest Chinese community in Latin AmericaChina Today Chinese in CubaEmbassy of Cuba in Beijing, History of Chinese in Cuba Surgido en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, el Barrio Chino de La Habana experimentó un rápido desarrollo y llegó a convertirse, en la siguiente centuria, en el más importante de América Latina. incorporated into the city by the early part of the 20th century. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese workers were brought in by Spanish settlers from Guangdong, Fujian, Hong Kong, and Macau via Manila, PhilippinesRafael Lam "Chinese from Manila in Cuba" starting in the mid-19th century to replace or work alongside African slaves.Embassy of Cuba in Beijing-Immigration in Cuba After completing 8-year contracts, many Chinese immigrants settled permanently in Havana.

The first 206 Chinese-born arrived in Havana on June 3, 1847.Cuba Culture "Aportes de los chinos en Cuba" The neighborhood was booming with Chinese restaurants, laundries, banks, pharmacies, theaters and several Chinese-language newspapers, the neighborhood comprised 44 square blocks during its prime. The heart of the Barrio Chino was the Plaza del Vapor on el Cuchillo de Zanja (Zanja Canal). The strip was a pedestrian-only street adorned with lanterns, red paper dragons and other Chinese cultural items; there were a great number of authentic Cuban-Chinese restaurants.

Some 5,000 immigrants from the U.S. came to Cuba during the late 19th century to escape the discrimination present at the time. Another, albeit smaller wave of Chinese immigrants, also arrived during the 20th century, some as supporters of the communist cause during the Cuban revolution and others as dissidents escaping the authorities in China.

There were almost no women among the nearly entirely male Chinese coolie population that migrated to Cuba(1%). In Cuba some Indian (Native American), mulatto, black and white women engaged in carnal relations or marriages with Chinese men, with marriages of mulatto, black and white women being reported by the Cuba Commission Report.

120,000 Cantonese 'coolies' (all males) entered Cuba under contract for 8 years. Most of these men did not marry, but Hung Hui (1975:80) cites there was a frequency of sexual activity between black women and these Asian immigrants. According to Osberg (1965:69) the free Chinese practice of buying slave women and then freeing them expressly for marriage was utilized at length. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Chinese men (Cantonese) engaged in sexual activity with black Cuban women, and from such relations many children were born.

In the 1920s, an additional 30,000 Cantonese and small groups of Japanese also arrived; both immigrations were exclusively male and there was rapid intermarriage with white, black and mulato populations. CIA World Factbook. Cuba. 2008. May 15, 2008. claimed 114,240 Chinese-Cuban coolies with only 300 pure Chinese.

In the study of genetic origin, admixture and asymmetry in maternal and paternal human lineages in Cuba, thirty-five Y-chromosome SNPs were typed in the 132 male individuals of the Cuban sample. The study does not include any people with some Chinese ancestry. All the samples were white Cubans and black Cubans. Two out of 132 male samples belong to East Asian Haplogroup O2 which is found in significant frequencies among Cantonese people is found in 1.5% of Cuban population. In the 1920s, an additional 30,000 Chinese arrived; the immigrants were exclusively male. In 1980, 4000 Chinese lived there, but by 2002, only 300 pure Chinese were left.http://www.uv.es/EBRIT/macro/macro_5006_64_24.html

Two thousand Chinese, consisting of Cantonese and Hakkas, fought with the rebels in Cuba's Ten Years' War, and a monument in Havana honours the Cuban Chinese who fell in the war on which is inscribed: "There was not one Cuban Chinese deserter, not one Cuban Chinese traitor."Westad, Odd Aren (2012) Restless Empire: China and the World Since 1750. (New York: Basic Books), pp.227–28. Chinese Cubans, including some Chinese-Americans from California, joined the Spanish–American War in 1898 to achieve independence from Spain, but a few Chinese, who were loyal to Spain, left Cuba and went to Spain. Racial acceptance and assimilation would come later. The district has two paifang, the larger one located on Calle Dragones. The long-neglected Chinatown in Havana, Cuba, received materials for its paifang from the People's Republic of China as part of the Chinatown's gradual renaissance. China donated the materials in the late 1990s.El Barrio Chino de la Habana – Havana's Barrio Chino It has a well defined written welcoming sign in Chinese and Spanish. The smaller arch is located on Zanja strip. Cuba's Chinese boom ended when Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution seized private businesses, sending tens of thousands of business-minded Chinese fleeing, mainly to the United States. Descendants are now making efforts to preserve and revive the culture. Many of the businesses in the Plaza del Vapor were operated and owned by Chinese Cubans.

The Chinese Cubans fought in the Cuban war of independence on the side of those seeking independence from Spain. A memorial consisting of a broken column memorializes Chinese participation in the war of independence at the corners of L and Linea in Havana. While many fled, some Chinese stayed after the start of Fidel Castro's rule in 1961. Younger generations are working in a wider variety of jobs than the previous generation. Many are entering show-business as song composers, actors, actresses, singers, and models.

Shanghai Theatre Was a few blocks from the Plaza del Vapor, on Calle Zanja at # 205 (W-9497). "Located in Chinatown, the old, hot and uncomfortable Shanghai Theater has the only public burlesque in Havana. Girls strip completely (no G-strings). This theater is probably one of the few places in the world which openly shows pornographic movies. Admission is $1.25, but varies according to the location of the seats..."

Vapor

A weekly service between Havana and Matanzas by the steamship the "Neptune" began its service on July 18, 1819, leaving Havana on Wednesdays at six in the morning for Matanzas and returning on Sundays at the same time, and carrying correspondence, cargo and passengers. The Plaza de Tacón, which was subsequently known as “del Vapor”, received this last name because “Pancho” Martí, owner of the first existing restaurants located in the corner of Galiano and Dragones, placed a painting on the wall that represented the steamship “Neptune”, baptizing and connecting forever the Plaza with the name "vapor," (steam).

Architecture

The building site is roughly square in shape, the building had a playground-courtyard in the middle and an high Colonnade surrounded by shops along the perimeter facing Calles Galiano, Reina, Aguila, and Dragones. The ground floor was commercial, the upper floors were occupied by the residences of some 200 families. In 1840 the building was remodeled into its characteristic colossal mass of masonry arches comprising the height of the ground and second floor. On the front of Reina Street, the architect, Eugenio Rayneri Sorrentino, designed a central, square, domed turret with a four dial clock, the entrance to the courtyard.

Concrete slab

In this building, Rayneri used steel beams in the ceilings spaced 70 cm apart supporting mud slabs, which were then a novelty in Havana. Unreinforced or "plain" slabs are today rare and have limited practical applications, with one exception being the mud slab. They were once common, but the economic value of reinforced ground-bearing slabs has become more appealing for many engineers. Without reinforcement, the entire load on these slabs is supported by the strength of the concrete, which becomes a vital factor. As a result, any stress induced by a load, static or dynamic, must be within the limit of the concrete's flexural strength to prevent cracking. Since unreinforced concrete is relatively very weak in tension, it is important to consider the effects of tensile stress caused by reactive soil, wind uplift, thermal expansion, and cracking. One of the most common applications for unreinforced slabs is in concrete roads. Mud slabs, also known as rat slabs, are thinner than the more common suspended or ground-bearing slabs (usually 50 to 150 mm), and usually contain no reinforcement. This makes them economical and easy to install for temporary or low-usage purposes such as subfloors, crawlspaces, pathways, paving, and levelling surfaces. In general, they may be used for any application which requires a flat, clean surface. This includes use as a base or "sub-slab" for a larger structural slab. On uneven or steep surfaces, this preparatory measure is necessary to provide a flat surface on which to install rebar and waterproofing membranes. In this application, a mud slab also prevents the plastic bar chairs from sinking into soft topsoil which can cause spalling due to incomplete coverage of the steel. Sometimes a mud slab may be a substitute for coarse aggregate. Mud slabs typically have a moderately rough surface, finished with a float.

Wrought iron