Dos Hermanos and Guillermo Esteves Bridges
Description
Dos hermanos and Guillermo Esteves bridges viewed from the Caribe Hilton Hotel. Part of the hotel's beach and the Condado lagoon are visible. In the background, buildings in Miramar and Santurce can be seen.| Origin Name |
Folio 0017, Caja 146_R
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| Relation |
Archivo General de Puerto Rico > Colección Particular Felisa Rincón de Gautier (CP 85) > Serie Fotografías > Tema Obras Públicas > Caja 0146
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| Geographical Coverage |
San Juan
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| Date |
[1946-1968?]
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| Descriptive Notes |
Title assigned by the cataloguing team.
Back. Stamp: "General Archive of Puerto Rico Felisa Rincón de Gautier Collection box #146 photo #17"
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| Descripción decolonial |
In this landscape of the islet of San Juan, two distinctive bridges that connect the capital with the rest of the island: the Guillermo Esteves Bridge (right) and the Two Brothers Bridge (left) can be seen. The architecture of both bridges reflects the two colonial periods in Puerto Rico and its evolutionary change in aesthetics. The Guillermo Esteves Bridge reflects the great military bastion that San Juan represented for Spain. It served as a defense on multiple occasions such as the privateer attacks of Englishmen such as Sir Francis Drake (1595), Count George Clifford (1598) and Sir Ralph Abercombry (1797). This bridge used to have a fort that was demolished in 1894 by Governor Antonio Dabán, in order to modernize its infrastructure by replacing it with a metal bridge. The demolition of this fort facilitated the entry of the Americans into the capital four years later during the Spanish-Philippine-American-Cuban War of 1898. It could be said that the demolition of the fort was a harbinger of the collapse of the Spanish empire. The second bridge was built in 1910 under the American government to connect Condado's Ashford Avenue with the islet of San Juan. It was built by the Behn brothers, who were also co-founders of the Puerto Rico Telephone Company. The presence of military houses on the islet of San Juan represents the territorial control of the space by the Americans, thus suggesting a wide displacement of Puerto Rican's in the region. This gentrification of the space will eventually reconfigure the region into a tourist exploitation destination, where the Caribe Hilton Hotel will be constructed. All this false vision of modernity and progress will be based on the enjoyment of the Americans, forgetting the rest of the island and its needs.
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| Colaborador |
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| Historical Background | |
| Architectural Subject |
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| Decolonial Subject | |
| Rights |
English Rights. (hyperlink)
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| Editor |
Fundación Luis Muñoz Marín
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| Resource Format |
JPEG
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| Resource Type |
Image
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/Colección Particular Felisa Rincón de Gautier (CP 85)/Serie Fotografías - Tema Obras Públicas/Caja 0146/Folio 0017, Caja 146_R.jpg&action=download){kind=link}