CAMAGÜEY.- It is still unknown when the first Town Hall of Camagüey was built. The chronicles of the time relate that in 1729 a house that was used as the seat of the territorial government collapsed. That building occupied a plot of land located in the then Plaza de San Francisco de Paula on the sidewalk that joins Comercio and San Pablo streets, possibly in the space now occupied by the Rancho Luna restaurant.

 From then on and for several years, mayors, councilmen, and government officials were left to wander around in rented rooms and sheds always in the area around the Plaza Mayor, until the day a loan was voted for 3,195 pesos and two reales to acquire the two-story house located on Calle Mayor, corner with San Diego, owned by Doña Eusebia de la Torre Guerra, who refused to sell it until finally the building was expropriated by the mayor's office in January 1731, approved by the ordinary mayors, Don Bernabé Sánchez and Don Rafael de Armas, with the intervention of Don Gaspar Betancourt Cisneros.

Shortly afterward, extension work began, using the upper floors of the house as a meeting room, the lower floors as a militia barracks, and the rooms at the back as a public prison, since until then this facility did not exist and prisoners were housed in the mayors' own homes. Finally, the new Chapter House was inaugurated on June 9, 1775, at a time when the town had around 14,400 inhabitants.

 Since then, and for 250 years, the building has maintained the same administrative function, which qualifies it today as the only one in the country with such a certificate of antiquity and the First Degree Heritage certificate granted by the Provincial Commission of Monuments since 1964.

 MARGINAL NOTES

 Independently of its numerous pages of political history, the Camagüey City Hall is also the scene of notable historical notes, some as curious as the spectacular escape of the Gulf Pirate Jean Laffite, captured on the coast of Santa Cruz del Sur in 1822 and imprisoned in the jail of the Puerto Principe City Hall; the burial in 1840 of the world-famous soprano of the Italian opera Mariana Pancartti; the funeral chapel where tribute was paid to the captain of the Liberation Army Rosa María Castellanos in 1907; the title of Adoptive Son given to the Mexican scientist, doctor, surgeon, and singer Dr. Alfonso Ortiz Tirado in 1922; the reception of the Spanish aviators Barberán and Collar, heroes of the non-stop flight from Seville to Camagüey in 1933; the tribute in 1966 to the singer and dancer Jhosefine Baker, an officer in the French army during World War II; the presentation of the key to the city to the dancer Alicia Alonso in 1982… and extensive history.

A GEM OF THE CITY

 There are many reasons why the local council building should be considered an exceptional exponent of Camagüey's architecture.

 “Its position at the center of the town from 1528, after its definitive settlement, constituted a reference for the identification of the first urban plots around the public square and the first neighbors. According to the technical file processed by the Projects Office of the Historian's Office of the City of Camagüey, an intervention is now being carried out that allows the typological and stylistic characteristics that are still preserved in the building to be maintained," says architect Maritza Monteagudo Canto, head of Projects.

 "The works are aimed at giving the building functionality for greater comfort in its use and, above all, recovering the architectural values that have been lost in reversible transfigurations, to which is added the protection of the eclectic elements of the façade enriched by the lines of Art Noveau.

 "The building preserves a masonry wall with the original stones, a structure presumed to be from the 17th century. It also has an elegant mezzanine of wooden beams and planks with the special contribution located in the main hall, one of the most valuable exponents treasured in our city," adds the architect.

On site, Pedro López García, investor, Alejandro Vázquez Socarrás, and Juan José Mesa Altean, heads of the brigades in masonry, roof and al operations, offer us details of the monumental task.

 Translated by Linet Acuña Quilez