Caleta de San Lazaro

Arcabuco was the name of a footpath starting in Old Havana, in the vicinity of the church of Loma del Ángel, and ran in a westerly direction to an inlet cove of approximately 93 m wide and 5.5 m in depth. When Juan Guillén a Spanish soldier installed a carpentry shop to build small boats close to the cove the site became known as “La Caleta de Juan Guillén”, the road was known as “the caleta”. Eventually the Hospital de San Lázaro, the Espada Cemetery, the San Dionisio mental asylum, and La Casa de Beneficencia were developed in close proximity to the Caleta de San Lazaro.

Dredging the Caleta of San Lazaro


In 1916 the dredging of the Caleta of San Lazaro began, in September the 1919 Florida Keys hurricane hit Havana and the rise in sea level raised the inland stretch that had been artificially created, the flood almost reached the Casa de la Beneficencia. In 1921, dredging was resumed and the construction of the Malecón wall began from the Torreón de San Lázaro to the current 23rd Street, the section was completed in 1923.