Sloppy Joe's Bar, Havana

This guide to Sloppy Joe's Bar in Havana centers on the counter in front of you, a rebuilt copy of the original single-trunk mahogany bar reputed to be the longest in Latin America, where sailors and journalists once stood three deep. It follows what happened after tourist traffic dried up in nineteen fifty-nine and a fire closed the doors in nineteen sixty-five, leaving the room to rot for forty-eight years until the floor collapsed and the bar itself split into three broken sections. Touch that counter now, and you're touching decades of that silence as much as anything else.