Puerto Rico - Fun Facts

Jorge wrote:

Historical Photographs of Puerto Rico,
1898-1940s*
www.trincoll.edu/classes/hist378/archivo/prpi...

Jorge wrote:

The Normandie Hotel is a hotel located in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The hotel originally opened on October 10, 1942. Its design was inspired by the ocean liner SS Normandie. It features the same art deco design as the ship that inspired it, and the hotel's roof sign is one of the two signs that adorned the top deck of the Normandie but were removed from it during an early refitting. It is a fine example of what came to be known as the Streamline Moderne architecture style.
The Normandie Hotel was the brainchild of Puerto Rican engineer Félix Benítez. The engineer met his future wife while on a trip abord the SS Normandie. As a tribute to his French wife, Moineau, Benítez decided to construct a structure that imitated the lavish settings of the ocean liner. Designed by architect Raúl Reichard (1908-1996), the hotel began construction in 1938. The hotel's exterior was designed to resemble a luxury liner, elongated and curved in front, with portal-shape windows and lights. Inside, the hotel features art deco design, complete with Roman, Egyptian, and French details, high ceilings, and corridors looking down into a central skylighted atrium. Designers and artists from the Dominican Republic, France, Spain, and Puerto Rico all contributed to the hotel's overall construction and when it opened on October 10, 1942 it became an instant sensation among the island's social elite. Completed at a cost of more than US$2,000,000, the hotel catered to many major Hollywood and Latin American film stars such as Cantinflas, Libertad Lamarque and Jorge Negrete. The hotel also served as a performing arts venue for many of Puerto Rico's top entertainers such as Ruth Fernández, Myrta Silva, Sylvia Rexach, and Carmen Delia Dipini. After being closed and abandoned in the 1960s, the hotel was restored in the early 1990s after it underwent massive renovations due to heavy damaged caused by Hurricane Georges in 1998.
In early 2005, the 173-room hotel reopened after an extensive refurbishing. Operating as an exclusive boutique hotel, the Normandie is a popular destination for locals and tourists.
The Normandie Hotel has been declared a national historic site was added to the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Interior Department's Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service on August 29, 1980.[2]
[edit] Popular Culture
The music video for singer Sade's song King of Sorrow (from her Lovers Rock album) was filmed in and around the hotel by director Sophie Muller.[3]
The hotel served as a locale for one of the four stories that help composed the storyline for the 2001 film 12 Horas directed by Puerto Rican director Raúl Marchand Sánchez.
[edit] References
^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2009-03-13. http://www.nr.nps.gov/ .
^ Puerta de Tierra: Hotel Normandie
^ King of Sorrow music video from YouTube
"La Môme Moineau" by Michel Ferracci-Porri.The first biography of Moineau and Félix Benitez

Jorge wrote:

El Senior Prom de mi viejo fué en el Salón de Oro de éste hotel en 1947.
Las fotos del evento las incluyeron en el Yearbook que guardo de recuerdo. Tremendo lujo, todo estilo Art Decco de los 40's.
De hecho, la esposa de Félix Benítez, familia de D. Jaime Benítez, la francesa Moineau, son legendarias (entre la gente del San Juan de la época, como mi papá).
Ésta millonaria, de la alta burguesía sanjuanera (nunca fué aceptada por la sociedad de la época, por sus escándalos), como: supuestamente "bañarse desnuda en la piscina del hotel"; las supuestas "orgías" en su yate "cruising around the San Juan bay"...tenían escandalizada a la sociedad puertorriqueña de los '30s y '40s.
Jorge
P.S.
The rumor mill (and the grapevine) has it that architect Félix Benítez met her (as a prostitute) in Paris in the 1930's, wed her and brought her home in the Normandie ship (which had the N.Y.C.-Paris, Fr. voyage); thus the name of the hotel he built in Puerto Rico.

prexplorer wrote:

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Sadly, the Normandie is closing again.

prexplorer wrote:

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Great pictures. I love those old photos; they are a window into the past.

prexplorer wrote:

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Interesting. Did they have any children?

Jorge wrote:

Perdón, en San Juan se prohibió la construcción horizontal, sólo se puede construir verticalmente.
La plataforma del PPR era moratoria en la construcción horizontal,(cero urbanizaciones) y reconstrucción de centros urbanos y exenciones contributivas para segundas plantas.
Jorge (sorry about that, estaba pensando en "little pregnant birds").

prexplorer wrote:

Mira Jorge,?Teh dite cuehnta de la pehlea queh tube con "El Boricuazo"?

prexplorer wrote:

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I did read about all of the contruction that will be going on at the gateway to Old San Juan. Sounds exciting. I hope they don't botch it up. Puerto Rico needs to regain lost ground in prestige.

Jorge wrote:

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Seguro que sí. Por eso fué que te dije que el tipo se cree que es el "human jodiend" (la jodienda humana on everything Puerto Rican).
El boricuazo-which means, una puertorriqueñada, o un cantazo borícua....LOL
Jorge

prexplorer wrote:

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Ese chamaco es algo serio. Siempre interprete las cosas mal o se cree que sabe lo que un esta pensando. Debe irse a trabajar con Walter Mercado el astrologo. Serian los gemelos fenomenos.

Jorge wrote:

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Good one! LMAO! Yo tuve una "tángana" (African word that means "heavy fighting"), que aquello daba vergüenza. Nos llamamos hasta perro muerto...LOL (más o menos como la que tienen JQ y PRJester, pero-la nuestra- del boricuazo y yo, fué más sucia y baja)...
De ahí en adelante lo trato de afuerita y mientras menos mejor (para todo el mundo). LOL
Jorge

Jorge wrote:

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Good one! LMAO! Yo tuve una "tángana" (African word that means "heavy fighting"), que aquello daba vergüenza. Nos llamamos hasta perro muerto...LOL (más o menos como la que tienen JQ y PRJester, pero-la nuestra- del boricuazo y yo, fué más sucia y baja)...
De ahí en adelante lo trato de afuerita y mientras menos mejor (para todo el mundo). LOL
Jorge

JQ240SX wrote:

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"perro muerto"? Quieres decir que no te cagaste el madre que lo tuvo?

Prexplorer wrote:

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Yo lo tuve que dejar. Dice que se tiene que ir a EEUU porque esta enfermo y no confia en los medicos Puertorros. No se porque me dijo eso.

Prexplorer wrote:

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Yo lo tuve que dejar. Dice que se tiene que ir a EEUU porque esta enfermo y no confia en los medicos Puertorros. No se porque me dijo eso.

Jorge wrote:

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Deja que se joda. La última vez que atendieron a mi vieja en Miami, no le entraban nada, se pasaba vomitando,(estaba recluída en Miami), rebajó 40lbs., no aguantaba comida, estaba deshidratada. Papi la trajo, de emergencia, acá.
Llegando, la llevamos al Cardiovascular del Centro Médico y al otro día estaba comiendo lechón. Inmediatamente le pusieron un "stem", en la arteria que lleva sangre al sistema digestivo y todo arreglado.
¿Qué te parece? Tanta mierda con los doctores de allá, y los de acá(o estudian allá) o hacen la especialidad allá.
Jorge