A Walk Around Condado Lagoon
“Discover The History Below Your Feet ”

This week I did some­thing total­ly dif­fer­ent. I record­ed my first walk & talk around Con­da­do Lagoon, in San Juan, Puer­to Rico. Walk & Talks have nev­er been a hall­mark of Puer­to Rico By GPS, main­ly because there are oth­er peo­ple doing them in Puer­to Rico.

But there were good rea­sons for this change of heart. First, my chan­nel is in Eng­lish and the main expo­nent in this genre does his in Span­ish. Sec­ond, mine are doctor’s order. That’s right! My doc­tor said I should walk because of my type 2 dia­betes con­di­tion. So why not hit two birds with one stone? I go for a walk and I shoot a video.

Click on image to watch the video

Final­ly, this doesn’t mean that I’m goin g to aban­don my reg­u­lar for­mat. It just ads vari­ety and lends itself to bet­ter health; your’s and mine. How your’s? Well, you can always take the same walk when you come to Puer­to Rico.

A Small Park For A Great Man

Jaime Benítez Nation­al Park
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Our walk will start at a small park called Jaime Benítez Nation­al Park. Jaime Benítez Rex­ach had a suc­cess­ful career at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Puer­to Rico, where he was named Pres­i­dent from 1966–1971. Then he was elect­ed Res­i­dent Com­mis­sion­er to Con­gress from 1972–1976.

The park is a love­ly place where the kayak­ing and pad­dle board­ing crowds gath­er on week­ends to enjoy the calm waters of Con­da­do Lagoon. What I real­ly wasn’t able to fig­ure out was the rela­tion between Ben­itez and the kayak­ing world. Or maybe he lived near­by and that was the con­nec­tion? I don’t know. All I can tell you is that the park is love­ly and Benítez was a great pub­lic servant.

We crossed straight across Jaime Benítez Park to reach a walk­way called “La Mar­gin­al”, which in Eng­lish means “ser­vice road”. Well, back in the 70’s that’s what it was, but today it’s actu­al­ly a walk­way with an adja­cent bike path.

La Marginal, An Old Hangout

La Mar­gin­al
(click on image to see it larger)

When I was a young man, back dur­ing the 70’s, it was actu­al­ly a ser­vice road. The younger crowd would gath­er there on Fri­days, Sat­ur­days and Sun­days to enjoy a corn on the cob, a sand­wich and maybe a cou­ple of “cold ones” and hang out with their sig­nif­i­cant oth­ers. The whole thing would start at around eight in the evening and by one or two in the morn­ing it was all over.

Keep in mind that back in the sev­en­ties loud car stereo sys­tems and boom box­es were all the craze, so the entire thing could be quite rowdy.

Across the street from La Mar­gin­al there’s a neigh­bor­hood called Mira­mar, that’s most­ly made up of the upper ech­e­lon of San Juan soci­ety. They weren’t too hap­py with all the craze going on every week­end at “La Mar­gin­al”, so they gave City Hall there two cents. After a while the com­plaints kept pil­ing up and City Hall final­ly gave in.

Instead of cre­at­ing a new space for the youth to con­gre­gate, they sim­ply turned the ser­vice road into a bike path.

This isn’t to crit­i­cize what’s there now. It’s nice, albeit it could use bet­ter main­te­nance. But for years gov­ern­ment has pushed back at youth and seen them more as a nui­sance. The trou­ble is that now the Island hard­ly has any youth. For that and many oth­er rea­sons that go beyond the scope of this arti­cle our young­sters have grown fed up with the Island and are leav­ing in droves. Puer­to Rico is quick­ly becom­ing a sil­ver-haired society.

Con­da­do sky­line from Román Bal­do­ri­o­ty de Cas­tro Square
(click on image to see it larger)

About halfway down “La Mar­gin­al” you’ll find a small square, with an obelisk in the cen­ter, ded­i­cat­ed to Román Bal­do­ri­o­ty de Cas­tro. In order to be called a “mar­gin­al” or “ser­vice road” what­ev­er was here before had to be next to an actu­al road. That road is State Road 26, also known as Román Bal­do­ri­o­ty De Cas­tro Avenue. In fact, most Puer­to Ricans sim­ply call it “La Bado­ri­o­ty” and almost no one refers to it as Road 26.

Román Bal­do­ri­o­ty de Cas­tro was a Puer­to Rican abo­li­tion­ist that lived dur­ing the ear­ly 19th cen­tu­ry. In 1870 he was elect­ed a Deputy to the Span­ish Court, but sev­en years lat­er he was jailed at the San Felipe del Mor­ro Fort for con­spir­ing against the Span­ish monarchy.

Leav­ing the small square we con­tin­ued along the sec­ond half of “La Mar­gin­al”. There were peo­ple doing their morn­ing exer­cise, jog­ging or sim­ply get­ting in a few thou­sand steps. I was doing the later.

A Fountain With A Weird Moniker

Towards the end of the walk there’s a small foun­tain on the left hand side called “Fuente de Bien­veni­da a San Juan”, which I had always known by the more satir­ic name of “el bidet de Doña Fela” (Doña Fela’s Bidet).

Doña Fela was, of course, Felisa Rincón de Gau­ti­er, the illus­tri­ous may­or of San Juan that we’ve cov­ered exten­sive­ly through­out this blog. And the foun­tain is one of those things that you won’t find doc­u­ment­ed under that name. But that’s what peo­ple call it. Believe me!

Wel­come to San Juan Fountain
(click on image to see it larger)

This foun­tain also has anoth­er claim to fame. It nev­er works! Most peo­ple nev­er notice it because it’s nev­er work­ing. In fact, when they do turn it on peo­ple actu­al­ly take notice since it’s such a rarity.

In all fair­ness, the foun­tain is actu­al­ly clean and paint­ed. It’s not full of grafi­ti, cans and bot­tles like oth­ers on the Island. Maybe it has tech­ni­cal prob­lems due to its prox­im­i­ty to salt water. I frankly don’t know. But con­sid­er it a rare treat if you catch it working.

After the foun­tain, the walk turns north and we go by an extra small beach called “Playi­ta de la Lagu­na del Con­da­do”. I guess they call this a beach because it has sun, sand and water, but frankly it isn’t invit­ing at all. And yet, many locals from the Puer­ta de Tier­ra” neigh­bor­hood walk there dur­ing the week­ends for a dip.

The Bridges: San Antonio, Esteves and Dos Hermanos

San Anto­nio Bridge
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When you walk through the curve you’ll be on the San Anto­nio Bridge. It’s one of the old­est in Puer­to Rico, albeit the one you’ll be cross­ing was built back in 1924–25 to car­ry a new high­way serv­ing the dock area of the San Juan islet. About halfway through there’s a small area where you can stop and enjoy a beau­ti­ful view of the Con­da­do Lagoon and skyline.

The water there is crys­tal clear and no more that 10–15 feet deep. In fact, as a young man I used to snorkel around the area with a friend of mine that already passed away.

There are two oth­er bridges in this area that con­nect the larg­er island of Puer­to Rico with San Juan Islet. The one west of San Anto­nio is called Guiller­mo Esteves Volk­ers and it’s the fourth struc­ture to occu­py this site since c.1521. It brings traf­fic from the Islet of San Juan towards the larg­er island of Puer­to Rico.

Aer­i­al View Of San Juan Bridges
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Final­ly, on the north­east of San Anto­nio Bridge you have the Dos Her­manos Bridge. It was designed and built by broth­ers Her­nan and Sos­thenes Behn, and opened in June 1910. The ver­sion that you see today was actu­al­ly rebuilt and opened in 2011.

Dos Her­manos Bridge
(click on image to see it larger)

The Behn broth­ers came to Puer­to Rico in 1906 from the neigh­bor­ing island of Saint Thomas. Among their accom­plish­ments were the cre­ation of the Puer­to Rico Tele­phone Com­pa­ny, WKAQ Radio (the largest on the Island to this day) and the Puer­to Rico Cham­ber of Com­merce, which they cofound­ed. They also devel­oped a lit­tle 150-acre real estate project in the San­turce area which even­tu­al­ly became present day Condado.

San Juan Islet’s Exterior Defenses

As you come to the cor­ner of San Anto­nio Bridge and Dos Her­nanos Bridge you’ll be stand­ing where Fort San Anto­nio once stood. Fort San Anto­nio was a small fort that was part of the exte­ri­or line of defense of San Juan.

Once you cross the street you’ll see a sec­ond fort across the water called Fort San Gerón­i­mo which is sim­i­lar in appear­ance to what Fort San Anto­nio must have been. Fur­ther north there’s still anoth­er fort called “El Fortín del Escam­brón”. Togeth­er, these three forts pro­tect­ed the east­ern tip of San Juan Islet and the entrance to San Anto­nio Canal.

Today San Anto­nio Canal is main­ly a water­way for plea­sure yachts and motor boats, but back then it was a back entrance to San Juan Bay. So, of course, it need­ed to be protected.

The entire area was con­sid­ered the first line of defense for San Juan Islet and there are still rem­nants everywhere.

A Walk Across Dos Hermanos Bridge

Dos Her­manos bridge look­ing towards Condado
(click on image to see it larger)

From this cor­ner I walked along the north side of Dos Her­manos Bridge towards the Con­da­do area. This thor­ough­fare is called Ash­ford Avenue and it con­nects the Puer­ta de Tier­ra area to the Ocean Park devel­op­ment going east. To go west you’ll have to go over a large sec­tion of Mag­dale­na Ave and recon­nect with Ashford.

Colonel Bai­ley Kel­ly Ash­ford was an Amer­i­can mil­i­tary physi­cian. After con­clud­ing his mil­i­tary career he came to Puer­to Rico to teach full time at the Trop­i­cal School of Med­i­cine. He was also instru­men­tal in the devel­op­ment of treat­ments for Amer­i­can Hook­worm and Anemia.

Towards the east­ern end of Dos Her­manos Bridge there’s a man-made break­wa­ter on your right hand side that served sev­er­al pur­pose. First, it closed off the mouth of the San Anto­nio Canal, which result­ed in calmer waters in the Con­da­do Lagoon. But more impor­tant­ly, it cre­at­ed two “beach­es” on the east­ern side. You can see the first one as you walk by the east­ern end of the San Anto­nio Bridge.

La Playi­ta del Condado
(click on image to see it larger)

Of course, every­one calls it “La Playi­ta del Con­da­do”, but what it real­ly does is estab­lish a demarka­tion between the pub­lic area and the “not so pri­vate” area by the near­by hotel.

You see, in Puer­to Rico beach­es are in the “pub­lic domain”. It has been the law of the land since 1886. How­ev­er, in prac­tice this has only led to a con­tin­u­ous strug­gle between the “haves and have-nots”.

Hotels and devel­op­ers have their way around the law by mak­ing access to the beach­es as hard as pos­si­ble. They build all sorts of archi­tec­ton­ic bar­ri­ers leav­ing only small access points. Then the gov­ern­ment puts up all sorts of legal bar­ri­ers like no park zones and stiff fines for vio­la­tors. In the end peo­ple gath­er that “the juice isn’t worth the squeeze” and go some­where else. Which, of course, is what pri­vate con­cerns set out to achieve.

Karl Wallenda: The Death Of A Legend

Now let me tell you a sto­ry. Imme­di­ate­ly as you pass the Dos Her­manos Bridge you’re going to find two hotel struc­tures. The one on the north side is called Con­da­do Plaza and the on the south is actu­al­ly an exten­sion of it con­nect­ed by a glass bridge.

Back in 1978 the north por­tion was called “Helio Isla” and the south was called “Flam­boyán Hotel”. But actu­al­ly, that’s beside the point. What’s real­ly impor­tant is that on March 22, 1978 a gen­tle­man called Karl Wal­len­da attempt­ed to cross from one to the oth­er over a high wire.

Karl Wal­len­da was a ger­man-born 78-year-old high wire artist who had done that type of thing hun­dreds of times before. But on that day he was advised not to do it because of the pre­vail­ing winds were men­ac­ing. Need­less to say, the man gave it his best, but close to the end of his trek he fell to his death.

I watched the whole thing unfold on TV. There’s was a taxi direct­ly where he fell, and as I recall it, he hit the rear bumper of the taxi with the back of his head before actu­al­ly hit­ting the ground. Back then cars had those shiny chrome bumpers that were hard as a rock, so in my hum­ble opin­ion the man was prob­a­bly dead before he hit the ground.

No here’s anoth­er sad fact about this unfor­tu­nate inci­dent. There isn’t as much as a small “com­mem­o­ra­tive plaque” where the poor man lost his life. My wife says it’s prob­a­bly because the hotel would rather for­get the whole inci­dent. But then again, a man lost his life then and there. What do you think?

Condado Beaches

From Con­da­do Plaza Hotel we con­tin­ued east along Ash­ford Avenue. It was a blis­ter­ing 90+ degree day with­out a sin­gle cloud in the sky; a great day for the beach, if you ask me. But, not in the Con­da­do Area, if you ask me.

And I should know about those things. After all, I spent close to a year of my life writ­ing “Puer­to Rico Beach By Beach”, a book where I tell you all about Puer­to Rico’s best beach­es. I also tell you about which are run by the gov­ern­ment, which are “wild beach­es” (mean­ing that they’re still the way God made them) and which are “eye can­dy beach­es” (nice to look at, but not to swim in). In my opin­ion, the ones in Con­da­do are of the lat­er variety.

We stopped at a small sea­side square called “Mirador del Con­da­do”, about ¼ of a mile after the Con­da­do Plaza Hotel. It has a stat­ue of a fat lady hold­ing a baby. You could see, regard­less of which direc­tion you looked, that the surf was rough. And that wasn’t a rare occur­rence. That’s what it looks like everyday.

So don’t believe me when I tell you that Con­da­do beach­es are eye can­dy. Take a look for yourself.

And here’s anoth­er gripe. It would have been nice to learn the name of the square, the sculp­tor and the stat­ue dur­ing our vis­it. Instead, I had to look it up on Google and I still don’t know who the sculp­tor was or the name of the piece. Details… just details.

The Condado Trio Incident

Con­da­do Van­der­bilt Hotel
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About anoth­er ¼ mile east on Ash­ford Avenue we arrived at the Con­da­do Van­der­bilt Hotel, one of three struc­tures that the gov­ern­ment of Puer­to Rico pro­posed to demol­ish. The oth­er two were the Old Con­ven­tion Cen­ter (which they actu­al­ly destroyed) and La Con­cha Hotel (which they par­tial­ly crippled).

The entire thing trig­gered pub­lic indig­na­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it came to La Con­cha Hotel and the “Hotel Con­da­do Beach” as it was called back then. Both struc­tures where con­sid­ered archi­tec­tur­al trea­sures and pub­lic protests ensued. Such was the pres­sure put on by the pub­lic that the gov­ern­ment rescind­ed on their plans and only destroyed the Con­ven­tion Center.

After all, it was in extreme dis­re­pair, it had the sex appeal of an ugly box and they want­ed to build a new one next to the Esteves bridge. And, in the spir­it of retal­i­a­tion, they named it after Pedro J. Rossel­ló González, the gov­er­nor that attempt­ed to destroy “La Con­cha Hotel”.

Lat­er on, in 2004, Gov­er­nor Sila María Calderón con­vert­ed the vacant lot into “La Ven­tana Al Mar”, a large beach­front park where vis­i­tors can actu­al­ly enjoy a view of the sea. And why do I empha­size the word “actu­al­ly”? Because The entire tourist dis­trict of San Juan is a sea­side area where you can’t “actu­al­ly” see the ocean.

Oth­er coun­tries have a road next to the sea and the build­ings are erect­ed behind the road. That way reg­u­lar peo­ple can actu­al­ly enjoy the view. But not in Puer­to Rico. Here reg­u­lar peo­ple don’t mat­ter. So the gov­ern­ment allows build­ing on the seashore and to hell with the peo­ple. You see it every­where through­out the Island. Once again, don’t believe me. Dri­ve around and see for yourself.

“La Ven­tana Al Mar” turned out to be a bril­liant idea that has has one mul­ti­ple inter­na­tion­al awards.

I walked to the end of the park, right next to the water, so you could see the kind of surf that’s preva­lent in the Con­da­do area. Check out the accom­pa­ny­ing video for beach recommendations.

La Con­cha Hotel
(click on image to see it larger)

A lit­tle to the east of “La Ven­tana Al Mar” you’ll find “La Con­cha Hotel”, one of the nicest hotels in the Con­da­do area. Dur­ing the “Con­da­do Trío” inci­dent (as it has been called) La Con­cha actu­al­ly had a piece demol­ished. And, of course, after the gov­ern­ment relin­quished on its inten­tions to destroy the prop­er­ty the entire build­ing was remod­eled and the miss­ing piece was rebuilt.

My Memories In Condado

Las Nerei­das Park
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Across the street from “La Con­cha Hotel” there’s a small square called “Plaza Las Nerei­das”. Back in the 80’s there was a pop­u­lar Ital­ian restau­rant by the same name at that cor­ner. In fact, my wife and I had din­ner there dur­ing our honeymoon.

After leav­ing “Plaza Las Nerei­das” I walked a short dis­tance along Mag­dale­na Avenue and turned right at “Luisa” Street. Two blocks down I turned right once again on “Vieques” Street and returned to the park­ing area of Jaime Benítez Park.

The entire walk was about 4 miles long and it took me a lit­tle bit over an hour. Of course, I wasn’t pow­er walk­ing or any­thing. I just went for a stroll with my cam­era doc­u­ment­ing every­thing around me and telling you sto­ries about it.

The next morn­ing my rest­ing blood sug­ar was 91. Not bad for a first try.

I hope to have you back for future walk & talks. And, of course, if you would actu­al­ly like to see the walk don’t for­get to watch the video.

See ya’ next time,

©2024,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
____________________

Bilin­gual Con­tent Cre­ator, Blog­ger, Podcaster,
Author, Pho­tog­ra­ph­er and New Media Expert
Tel. 787–750-0000, Mobile 787–306-1590