Coppelia (ice cream parlor)
Coppelia is an ice cream parlor chain in Cuba. Coppelia sells in both Cuban pesos and Cuban convertible pesos. Havana's Coppelia employs more than 400 workers and serves 4,250 US gallons of ice cream to 35,000 customers each day; when business started in 1966, it ran with an impressive count of 25 combinations. Today, lines are long and the supply and selection of flavors is scarce, with only one or two available at any given time. Havana's Coppelia is a Cuban Revolution modernist building from 1966, it features five white granite discs annexed to one great helicoidal staircase, with wood and tinted glass division panels, all under one big round roof supported by twelve reinforced concrete arachnid columns. The flying-saucer-shaped building represents a UFO that has landed in Havana and is one of the largest ice cream parlors in the world. Holding a maximum of 1000 guests, it is located on the part of Calle 23 known as La Rampa in the Vedado district, occupies the entire city block between Calles 23 and 21, Calles K and L. Coppelia has been a major city landmark for both locals and visitors since its opening in 1966, but acquired additional fame when it was featured in one of the most viewed Cuban films and Chocolate.
Coppelia was built in a project led by Fidel Castro to introduce his love of dairy products to the Cuban population, creating the Coppelia enterprise to produce those products. The original aim was to produce more ice cream flavors than the big American brands by buying the best machines from the Netherlands and Sweden. Fidel's longtime secretary, Celia Sánchez, named Coppelia after her favorite ballet Coppélia; the site of Coppelia Havana was taken by the Reina Mercedes Hospital, which functioned from 1886 to 1954 when it was demolished. There were plans to build another hospital on the site, but plans changed and a 50-story skyscraper was to be built on the site, but all these plans fell through. A tourism promotion pavilion, Parque INIT occupied the site the Centro Recreativo Nocturnal, before Coppelia took over. Mario Girona was the architect of the new ice cream palace built on the site in 1966; the building was influenced by the biomorphic modernism of Italian and South American modernists like Pier Luigi Nervi, Felix Candela and Oscar Niemeyer, who saw the opportunity to leave behind the rectangular forms of the steel high rises and utilize the plasticity of reinforced concrete.
Populist ideology helped shape the use of the public space. The park area surrounding the building features lush groundcover and a canopy of towering Banyan trees which provide shade for open-air dining areas. Curvilinear paths lead to an elevated circular pavilion inside of which the only indoor seating is located. In March 2012 Venezuela announced plans to cooperate with Cuba to build a Coppelia ice cream plant in the country and introduce sales of the product there. In April of the same year the Cuban newspaper Trabajadores ran an article exposing the scarcity and poor quality of the product as well as the inattentive service at the parlor, despite the completed renovations. Among the problems were broken freezers
Polytechnic University of Catalonia
The Polytechnic University of Catalonia referred to as BarcelonaTech and named just the UPC, is the largest engineering university in Catalonia, Spain. It offers programs in other disciplines such as mathematics and architecture; the UPC's objectives are based on internationalization, as it is one of Europe's technical universities with the most international PhD students and the university with the largest share of international master's degree students. The UPC is a university aiming at achieving the highest degree of engineering/technical excellence and has bilateral agreements with several top-ranked European universities; the UPC is a member of the Top Industrial Managers for Europe network, which allows for student exchanges between leading European engineering schools. It is a member of several university federations, including the Conference of European Schools for Advanced Engineering Education and Research and UNITECH; the university was founded in March 1971 as the Universitat Politècnica de Barcelona through the merger of engineering and architecture schools founded in the 19th century.
As of 2007 it has 25 schools in Catalonia located in the cities of Barcelona, Manresa, Sant Cugat del Vallès, Igualada, Vilanova i la Geltrú and Mataró. As of the academic year 2017-18, the UPC has over 30,000 students and over 3,000 teaching and research staff, 65 undergraduate programs, 73 graduate programs and 49 doctorate programs; the UPC is ranked as one of the leading European universities in the technology and engineering fields. U. S. News & World Report, for instance, ranks it as the world's 36th best for Computer Science and 60th best for Engineering.. The QS World University Rankings place the UPC among the world's 50 best universities in disciplines such as Architecture, Civil Engineering and Electronic Engineering, Telecommunications Engineering, Instruments Science and Technology and Remote Sensing.. EET: Escola d'Enginyeria de Terrassa EETAC: Escola d'Enginyeria de Telecomunicació i Aeroespacial de Castelldefels EPSEB: Escola Politècnica d'Edificació de Barcelona - EPSEM: Escola Politècnica Superior d'Enginyeria de Manresa - EPSEVG: Escola Politècnica Superior d'Enginyeria de Vilanova i la Geltrú - ESAB: Escola Superior d'Agricultura de Barcelona - ETSAB: Escola Tècnica Superior d'Arquitectura de Barcelona - ETSAV: Escola Tècnica Superior d'Arquitectura del Vallès - ETSECCPB: Escola Tècnica Superior d'Enginyeria de Camins, Canals i Ports de Barcelona - ESEIAAT: Escola Superior d'Enginyeries Industrial, Aeroespacial i Audiovisual de Terrassa - ETSEIB: Escola Tècnica Superior d'Enginyeria Industrial de Barcelona Telecom BCN, ETSETB: Escola Tècnica Superior d'Enginyeria de Telecomunicacions de Barcelona - FOOT: Facultat d'Òptica i Optometria de Terrassa - FIB: Facultat d'Informàtica de Barcelona - FME: Facultat de Matemàtiques i Estadística - FNB: Facultat de Nàutica de Barcelona -: Marine Engineering, Nautical Engineering, Maritime Transportation, Systems Engineering, Nautical Technology, Nautical Studies, Naval Engineering, more.
CFIS: Centre de Formació Interdisciplinària Superior - CITM: Centre de la Imatge i la Tecnologia Multimèdia EEI: Escola d'Enginyeria d'Igualada EEBE: Escola d'Enginyeria de Barcelona Est EUPMT: Escola Universitària Politècnica de Mataró - EUNCET: Escola Universitària Caixa Terrassa - EAE: Centre Universitari EAE - Càtedra UNESCO de Direcció Universitària - UNESCO Chair of Higher Education Management Càtedra UNESCO de Mètodes Numèrics en Enginyeria de la UPC - UNESCO Chair of Numerical Methods in Engineering Càtedra UNESCO de Sostenibilitat - UNESCO Sustainability Chair Càtedra UNESCO en Salut Visual i Desenvolupament - UNESCO Chair of Vision and Development Càtedra UNESCO en Tècnica i Cultura - UNESCO Chair of Technology and Culture The UPC has a number of research centres. CCABA - Advanced Broadband Communications Center CD6 - Centre for Sensors and Systems Development CDPAC - Cen. de Documentació de Projectes d'Arquitectura de Catalunya CEBIM - Molecular Biotechnology Centre CERpIE - C.
Recerca i Desenv. per a la Millora i Innov.de les Empreses CETpD-UPC -Tech. Research Cen. for Dependency Care and Autonomous Living CPSV- Centre of Land Policy and Valuations CRAE - Centre de Recerca de l'Aeronàutica i de l'Espai CRAHI - Centre de Recerca Aplicada en Hidrometeorologia CRAL - Centre for Research and Services for the Local Administration CIMNE - International Center for Numerical Methods in Engineering CREB - Biomedical Engineering Research Centre CREMIT - Center for Engines and Heat Installations CRNE - Centre for Research in Nanoengineering LACÀN - Specific Research Center of Numerical Methods in Applied Sciences and Engineering LIM/UPC - Maritime Engineering Laboratory LITEM - Labor
Embassy of the United States, Havana
The Embassy of the United States of America in Havana is the United States of America's diplomatic mission in Cuba. On January 3, 1961, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower severed relations following the Cuban Revolution of the 1950s. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter and President Fidel Castro signed an Interests Sections Agreement that permitted each government to operate out of its former embassy in Havana and Washington D. C. which were called Interests Sections. Cuban President Raúl Castro and US President Barack Obama restored full diplomatic connections on July 20, 2015; the building housed the United States Interests Section in Havana between 1977 and 2015, which operated under the auspices of the Swiss Embassy. On July 1, 2015 it was announced that with the resumption of diplomatic ties, the building resumed its role as the U. S. Embassy in Cuba on July 20, 2015. After the allegations of sonic attacks surfaced in 2017, United States withdrew most of the personnel from the embassy, so by July 2018 only 10 American diplomats were left to maintain the diplomatic service.
The embassy is led by Chargé d'affaires ad interim Ambassador Mara Tekach. The current embassy was designed in the Modernist—Brutalist style by the architectural firm Harrison & Abramovitz, it is a long and six-story concrete and glass building, completed in 1953. The gardens were designed by Californian landscape architect Thomas Dolliver Church; the contractor for the building was Jaime Alberto Mitrani, PE a professor of civil engineering at the University of Havana. The embassy complex is located directly on the Malecón and the José Martí Anti-Imperialist Platform, in proximity to the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After the U. S. diplomatic mission became defunct in 1961, the building was not used by American personnel until the opening of the interests section on September 1, 1977. In 1963, Prime Minister of Cuba Fidel Castro ordered the confiscation of the complex, but action was never taken by the Cuban government, though it still claimed right to the property in 2012. During the period that the complex served as an interests section, the U.
S. was represented by Switzerland, the Swiss maintained both the embassy complex and its effects. Renovations were completed on the complex in 1997; the building was upgraded from an interests section and returned to its original role as the United States Embassy in Cuba, on July 20, 2015. On August 14, 2015, U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry reopened it. S. flag at the embassy 54 years earlier presented a new flag, raised by Marines assigned to the post. In August 2017, reports began surfacing that Americans posted at the embassy had been subjected to health-related incidents, dating back to late 2016. Two dozen employees of the State Department reported experiencing what were referred to as "health attacks"; the State Department determined that the health problems may have been the result of an attack or else exposure to an as-yet-unknown device, did not believe the Cuban government is responsible. Affected individuals described mild brain damage similar to a concussion and symptoms such as temporary or permanent hearing loss, memory loss, nausea.
Speculation has centered around a sonic or ultrasonic weapon, however the scientific consensus is that the use of a sonic weapon is implausible. Dr. Timothy Leighton has said "If you’re talking about a ray-gun rifle knocking out someone with ultrasound they can’t hear at a hundred meters — that’s not going to happen"; the United States expelled two Cuban diplomats in response to the attacks. In September, the US State Department stated that it was removing non-emergency staff from the US embassy, warned US citizens not to travel to Cuba. In October 2017, the Associated Press released what it claimed was a recording of the sound some embassy workers heard during the attacks. However, senior neurologists consulted by The Guardian suggested that the health incidents were psychosomatic complaints, of the kind known as mass hysteria. In December 2017, investigators discovered abnormalities in the victims' brains; the white matter of the brains showed physical changes which doctors believe could not have been caused by sound.
They are now avoiding the term "sonic" to describe the attacks and there is growing skepticism it was caused by a sonic device. In a 2018 paper published in JAMA, a team of medical researchers at the University of Pennsylvania all but ruled out a sonic weapon and said they could not find the source of the ailments experienced by the embassy staff, they said that the report by the Associated Press claiming researchers had found damage to white matter in the brains of the patients was wrong and that there was no such damage. In January 2019 a study of a recording of the sound heard by embassy staff was released by Alexander Stubbs, a graduate student at the University of California and Fernando Montealegre-Zapata, a professor of sensory biology at the University of Lincoln; the study found that the sound matched the mating song of the Indies short-tailed cricket found around the Caribbean. The researchers did not examine the cause of the diplomats’ ailments and did not rule out a sonic attack “at another point”.
James Lewis, a former State Department official and intelligence expert, stated: "We know with 100% that the embassies are under surveillance, the technology being used could just be crude and over-
Centro Habana
Centro Habana is one of the 15 municipalities or boroughs in the city of Havana, Cuba. There are many retail spaces (such as Plaza de Carlos III commercial center, office buildings, hotels and clubs. A chinatown - Barrio Chino - is located in this district, it is a smaller municipality of Havana, it has the highest population density. Centro Habana is divided into five consejos populares: Cayo Hueso, Colón, Los Sitios and Pueblo Nuevo; the infrastructure of the city, built 450 years ago deteriorated during the 1990s after the collapse of the Cuban-Soviet trade partnership. In 1996, restoration projects were started to improve housing and infrastructure in the Cayo Hueso community. Centro Habana was established as an administrative division in 1963 and formally made its own municipio in 1976. In 2004, the municipality of Centro Habana had a population of 158,151. With a total area of 4 km2, it has a population density of 39,537.8 inhabitants per square kilometre. Media related to Centro Habana at Wikimedia Commons Centro Habana guia turistica - touristic guide Hotels in Centro Habana, Cuba Travel and tourism
Jetty
A jetty is a structure that projects from the land out into water. "jetty" refers to a walkway accessing the centre of an enclosed waterbody. The term is derived from the French word jetée, "thrown", signifies something thrown out. Another form of jetties, wing dams are extended out, opposite one another, from each bank of a river, at intervals, to contract a wide channel, by concentration of the current to produce a deepening. Where docks are given sloping sides, openwork timber jetties are carried across the slope, at the ends of which vessels can lie in deep water or more solid structures are erected over the slope for supporting coal-tips. Pilework jetties are constructed in the water outside the entrances to docks on each side, so as to form an enlarging trumpet-shaped channel between the entrance, lock or tidal basin and the approach channel, in order to guide vessels in entering or leaving the docks. Solid jetties, lined with quay walls, are sometimes carried out into a wide dock,at right angles to the line of quays at the side, to enlarge the accommodation.
The approach channel to some ports situated on sandy coasts is guided and protected across the beach by parallel jetties. In some cases, these are made solid up to a little above low water of neap tides, on which open timber-work is erected, provided with a planked platform at the top raised above the highest tides. In other cases, they consist of solid material without timber-work; the channel between the jetties was maintained by tidal scour from low-lying areas close to the coast, subsequently by the current from sluicing basins. It is protected to some extent by the solid portion of the jetties from the inroad of sand from the adjacent beach, from the levelling action of the waves; the bottom part of the older jetties, in such long-established jetty ports as Calais and Ostend, was composed of clay or rubble stone, covered on the top by fascine-work or pitching, but the deepening of the jetty channel by dredging and the need that arose for its enlargement led to the reconstruction of the jetties at these ports.
The nes jetties at Dunkirk were founded in the sandy beach, by the aid of compressed air, at a depth of 22.75 feet. Below low water of spring tides. Above low water of neap tides. A small tidal rise spreading tidal water over a large expanse of lagoon or inland backwater causes the influx and efflux of the tide to maintain a deep channel through a narrows no longer confined by a bank on each side, becomes dispersed, owing to the reduction of its scouring force, is no longer able at a moderate distance from the shore effectually to resist the action of tending to form a continuous beach in front of the outlet. Hence a bar is produced. By carrying out a solid jetty over the bar, however on each side of the outlet, the tidal currents are concentrated in the channel across the bar, lower it by scour, thus the available depth of the approach channels to Venice through the Malamocco and Lido outlets from the Venetian Lagoon have been deepened several feet over their bars by jetties of rubble, carried out across the foreshore into deep water on both sides of the channel.
Other examples are provided by the long jetties extended into the sea in front of the entrance to Charleston harbour constructed of fascines weighed down with stone and logs, but subsequently of rubble stone, by the two converging rubble jetties carried out from each shore of Dublin Bay for deepening the approach to Dublin harbour. Jetties have been constructed on each side of the outlet river of some of the rivers flowing into the Baltic, with the objective of prolonging the scour of the river and protecting the channel from being shoaled by the littoral drift along the shore; the most interesting application of parallel jetties is in lowering the bar in front of one of the mouths of a deltaic river flowing into a tide — a virtual prolongation of its less sea, by extending the scour of the river out to the bar by banks. Jetties prolonging the Sulina branch of the Danube into the Black Sea, the south pass of the Mississippi River into the Gulf of Mexico, formed of rubble stone and concrete blocks, have enabled the discharge of these rivers to scour away the bars obstructing the access to them.
Where a river is narrow near its mouth, has a feeble discharge and a small tidal range, the sea is liable on an exposed coast to block up its outlet during severe storms. The river is thus forced to seek another exit at a weak spot of the beach, which along a low coast may be at some distance off; this inconvenient cycle of changes may be stopped by fixing the outlet of the river at a suitable site, by carrying a jetty on each side of this outlet across the beach, thereby concentrating its discharge in a definite channel and protecting the mouth from being blocked up by littoral drift. This system was lon
Havana
Havana is the capital city, largest city, major port, leading commercial center of Cuba. The city has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, it spans a total of 781.58 km2 – making it the largest city by area, the most populous city, the fourth largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean region. The city of Havana was founded by the Spanish in the 16th century and due to its strategic location it served as a springboard for the Spanish conquest of the Americas, becoming a stopping point for treasure-laden Spanish galleons returning to Spain; the King Philip II of Spain granted Havana the title of City in 1592. Walls as well as forts were built to protect the old city; the sinking of the U. S. battleship Maine in Havana's harbor in 1898 was the immediate cause of the Spanish–American War. The city is the center of the Cuban government, home to various ministries, headquarters of businesses and over 90 diplomatic offices; the current mayor is Marta Hernández of the Communist Party of Cuba. In 2009, the city/province had the third highest income in the country.
Contemporary Havana can be described as three cities in one: Old Havana and the newer suburban districts. The city extends westward and southward from the bay, entered through a narrow inlet and which divides into three main harbors: Mari melena and Antares; the sluggish Almendares River traverses the city from south to north, entering the Straits of Florida a few miles west of the bay. The city attracts over a million tourists annually. Old Havana was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982; the city is noted for its history, culture and monuments. As typical of Cuba, Havana experiences a tropical climate. Most native settlements became the site of Spanish colonial cities retaining their original Taíno names. Conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar founded Havana on August 25, 1515, on the southern coast of the island, near the present town of Surgidero de Batabanó, or more on the banks of the Mayabeque River close to Playa Mayabeque. All attempts to found. However, an early map of Cuba drawn in 1514 places the town at the mouth of this river.
Between 1514 and 1519 the Spanish established at least two different settlements on the north coast, one of them in La Chorrera, today in the neighborhoods of Vedado and Miramar, next to the Almendares River. The town that became Havana originated adjacent to what was called Puerto de Carenas, in 1519; the quality of this natural bay, which now hosts Havana's harbor, warranted this change of location. Pánfilo de Narváez gave Havana – the sixth town founded by the Spanish on Cuba – its name: San Cristóbal de la Habana; the name combines patron saint of Havana. Shortly after the founding of Cuba's first cities, the island served as little more than a base for the Conquista of other lands. Havana began as a trading port, suffered regular attacks by buccaneers and French corsairs; the first attack and resultant burning of the city was by the French corsair Jacques de Sores in 1555. Such attacks convinced the Spanish Crown to fund the construction of the first fortresses in the main cities – not only to counteract the pirates and corsairs, but to exert more control over commerce with the West Indies, to limit the extensive contrabando that had arisen due to the trade restrictions imposed by the Casa de Contratación of Seville.
Ships from all over the New World carried products first to Havana, in order to be taken by the fleet to Spain. The thousands of ships gathered in the city's bay fueled Havana's agriculture and manufacture, since they had to be supplied with food and other products needed to traverse the ocean. On December 20, 1592, King Philip II of Spain granted Havana the title of City. On, the city would be designated as "Key to the New World and Rampart of the West Indies" by the Spanish Crown. In the meantime, efforts to build or improve the defensive infrastructures of the city continued. Havana expanded in the 17th century. New buildings were constructed from the most abundant materials of the island wood, combining various Iberian architectural styles, as well as borrowing profusely from Canarian characteristics. In 1649, an epidemic of the fatal Yellow fever brought from Cartagena in Colombia affected a third of the European population of Havana. By the middle of the 18th century Havana had more than seventy thousand inhabitants, was the third-largest city in the Americas, ranking behind Lima and Mexico City but ahead of Boston and New York.
During the 18th century Havana was the most important of the Spanish ports because it had facilities where ships could be refitted and, by 1740, it had become Spain's largest and most active shipyard and only drydock in the New World. The city was captured by the British during the Seven Years' War; the episode began on June 6, 1762, when at dawn, a British fleet, comprising more than 50 ships and a combined force of over 11,000 men of the Royal Navy and Army, sailed into Cuban waters and made an amphibious landing east of Havana. The British opened up trade with their North American and Caribbean colonies, causing a rapid transformation of Cuban society. Less than a year after Havana was seized, the Peace of Paris was signed by the three warring powers thus ending the Seven Years' War; the treaty gave
Malecón, Havana
The Malecón is a broad esplanade and seawall which stretches for 8 km along the coast in Havana, from the mouth of Havana Harbor in Old Havana, along the north side of the Centro Habana neighborhood, ending in the Vedado neighborhood. New businesses are appearing on the esplanade due to economic reforms in Cuba that now allow Cubans to own private businesses. Construction of the Malecón began in 1901, during temporary U. S. military rule. The main purpose of building the Malecón was to protect Havana from the sea and the so-called American Nortes. To celebrate the construction of the first 500m section of the Malecón, the American government built a roundabout at the intersection of Paseo del Prado, according to architects of the period, was the first one built in Cuba with steel-reinforced concrete. In front of the roundabout, where every Sunday bands played Cuban melodies, the Miramar Hotel was built, much in fashion for the first 15 years of independence and, the first one where the waiters wore tuxedos and vests with gold buttons.
Subsequent Cuban governments continued the extension of the first section of the Malecón. In 1923 it reached the mouth of the Almendares River between K and L streets in Vedado, where the United States Embassy was built, the José Martí Sports Park and further out, the Hotel Rosita de Hornedo, the Sierra Maestra. In 1957 and 1958, the roadway served as the venue of the Cuban Grand Prix; the Malecón continues to be popular among Cubans among those of lesser means whose other means of entertainment are limited. It is a means of income for poorer families, as individual fishermen cast their lures there. In addition, it is a hotspot for prostitution in Cuba by women. Although the houses lining the Malecón are in ruins, the Malecón remains one of the most spectacular and popular destinations in Havana. In 1901 and 1902, from the Paseo del Prado to Calle Crespo Between 1902 and 1921 as far as the Monument to the Victims of the USS Maine Between 1948 and 1952 to the mouth of the Almendares River There are a number of important monuments along the Malecón, including those to General Máximo Gomez, Antonio Maceo, General Calixto García, the Monument to the Victims of the USS Maine.
At the intersection of 23rd Street, the Malecón marks the northeast end of the "La Rampa" section of 23rd Street, is active at night. In the Plaza de la Dignidad is a statue of José Martí and in front of the Embassy of the United States, the José Martí Anti-Imperialist Platform. Significant buildings include the Castillo de la Real Fuerza, the Castillo de San Salvador de la Punta, the Torreón de San Lázaro, the Hotel Nacional; the Malecón has served as an inspiration for several cocktail names, including the "Malecón cockteil" by John Escalante that can be traced back to his 1915 Cuban cocktail guide, Manual Del Cantinero. Malecón, Havana Cuba portal "Malecón habanero", EcuRed "The Malecón", Moon Travel Guides" "El Malecón", Cuba Junky
Media related to Vedado at Wikimedia Commons
