Philipp Terry, the Consulado red light district was already a known commodity. As early as the 1920s, according to travel writer T. Tourists could just walk a few meters away from the lobbies of their swanky hotels to the decadent bars and cabarets along Consulado. Many of Havana’s top hotels of olden times, such as the Sevilla-Biltmore, the Plaza, the Deauville and the Inglaterra, were located in this area. The bar, which was well-recommended by English writer Graham Greene, the author of the novel Our Man in Havana, was a respectable front for more carnal offerings inside its backrooms for tourists looking for sleazy fun.Īvenida Consulado runs parallel with Avenida Prado, the famous tree-lined promenade that stretches from Parque Central in front of the Gran Teatro de La Habana to the seaside Malecon. In fact, a notorious cabaret named 212 Bar Club was situated just a few meters away. Located in Avenida Consulado in the rundown district of Centro Habana, Hotel Lido lie smack at the center of Havana’s old red light district in Consulado.

The hotel was the key to the whole research. In the movie, a fictional Mafioso named Joe Volpi ran the casinos for Meyer Lansky, a real-life Mafioso who ran Havana’s casinos in the 1950s. I took my cue from the aforementioned movie wherein Hotel Lido was prominently portrayed.

Old havana cuban bar