Universidad de la Habana

This guide to the Universidad de la Habana climbs to the bronze Alma Mater statue at its entrance, cast in 1919 by Czech sculptor Mario Korbel, and the real teenager, Feliciana Chana Villalon, whose face he borrowed from the corridors where her father taught. It reaches back to the university's founding by Dominican friars in 1728, and forward to the 1920s, when student organizer Julio Antonio Mella built a federation here that helped topple a dictator. It also follows the musicians who still gather on these steps today to sing to crowds climbing to listen.