What American Tourists Will Do to Havana

Today, Old Havana is the site of one of the world’s most ambitious urban-revival projects. The force behind this transformation is Eusebio Leal Spengler, the city’s chief historian. In the early 1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union pitched Cuba into economic crisis, Leal persuaded President Fidel Castro to approve the establishment of a tourist-management company, called Habaguanex, that would bring foreign investment back to the island.