ay stand with a warehouse on one side and a workshop on the other. A few
people, of unquestionable social position still live in buildings in which
the street floor is a store or an office. There is nothing curious about
this. In many American cities, old families have clung to old homes, and
not a few new families have, from one reason or another, occupied similar
quarters. Such a residence may not conform to modern social ideas and
standards, but there are Americans in this country, as well as Cubans and
Spaniards in Havana, who can afford to ignore those standards. The same is
true of many who live in the newer city, outside the old walls. There as
here, business encroaches on many streets formerly strictly residential.
This holds in the newer part of the city as well as in the old part. A
number of streets there are, for a part of their length, quite given over
to business. Even the Prado itself is the victim of commercial invasion.
What was once one of the finest residences in the city, the old Aldama
place fronting on the Campo de Marte, is now a cigar factory. A little
beyond it is the Tacon market, occupying an entire block. Stores and shops
surround it. The old avenue leading to the once fashionable Cerro, and
to the only less fashionable Jesus del Monte, is now a business street.
Another business street leads out of the Parque Central, alongside the
former Tacon theatre. The broad Calzada de Galiano, once a fashionable
residence street, is now largely commercial. While less picturesque than
some parts of the old city within the walls, the most attractive part of
Havana is undoubtedly the section of El Vedado, the westward extension
along the shore. Here are broad streets, trees, gardens, and many beautiful
and costly dwellings. This is really the modern Havana. A part of it is
only a little above sea-level, and behind that strip is a hill. A few years
ago, only a small number of houses were on the hillside or the hilltop.
Now, it is well built over with modern houses. The architectural type is
generally retained, and it is rather a pity that there should be even
what variation there is. El Vedado is the region of the wealthy and the
well-to-do, with a large percentage of foreigners. It has its social ways,
very much as other places have, in this country, in France, Hong Kong, or
Honolulu. They are not quite our ways, but they are a result of conditions,
just as ours are.

On the hill, a little back of El Vedado,