Eloise at the Plaza...Charlotte at the Riviera

The Riviera Hotel

 When I found out that I would be spending next semester in Cuba I tried to picture my living conditions. Maybe I would be staying with a Cuban family? Or in a dilapidated old house on the beach? I fostered some of these fantasies until last week when I found out that while in Havana I'll be living at the Riviera Hotel.

Although I was initially a little disappointed with the thought of living in a hotel, my childhood dreams of living like Eloise at the Plaza came back to me. I don't expect to be greeted by Nanny or to order room service every night, but there is something exciting about living in a hotel with such an interesting history. The Riviera was built in 1957 by the American gangster Meyer Lansky. Lansky had previously built successful hotels (aka casinos) in Las Vegas, and when Cuba passed the Hotel Law 2074 which allowed for new hotels to be built for tourist purposes, Meyer quickly seized the opportunity to build the biggest and best hotel in the Caribbean. According to this new law, if a hotel's construction cost more than one million dollars the contractors were allowed to apply for a casino license, and Meyer's Riviera Hotel was really just an excuse to build a casino. The construction of the hotel cost 14 million dollars, 8 of which came from Meyer himself; the other 6 million was funded by Batista and government funds. Before the construction of Las Vegas style hotels, gambling in Cuba was unregulated, and foreign gamblers were often duped and essentially, robbed. Americans were calling for gambling reform, and by quietly cooperating with gangsters like Meyer, the Cuban government was able to make reforms as well as a large profit.

The Riviera was originally a pretty classy joint. Ginger Rogers preformed on the casino's opening night, and the hotel's restaurant had some of the finest food in the country, including steaks flown in from America. The hotel is full of commissioned art by Rolando Lopez Dirupe, including a huge brass mural of two people dancing and a famous sculpture of a woman and a dolphin. The Riviera was the first building in Havana to have centralized air-conditioning, which was a big deal considering the humid tropical climate. The hotel was designed and built in 11 months by the Russian architect Igor Polevitsky, and while some Cubans disliked the aesthetic of the Y-shaped building, no one could deny its modernity and touristic appeal. The building is 21 floors tall, and almost every room has a view of the ocean.

In 1960, Castro claimed the Hotel Riviera as government property, and it was there that he gave his first press conference declaring the success of the Revolution. After researching the Riviera at the height of tourism in Cuba it will be interesting to see the hotel as it exists today. I'm not planning on winning big in the casino, but I think that an ocean view will be sufficient compensation.