Max Borges designed a building composed of five reinforced concrete arches and glass walls over an indoor stage. When the indoor cabaret opened on March 15, 1952, it had a combined total
seating capacity of 1,700 for the interior and outside areas. The furniture was designed by
Charles and Ray Eames. The
Arcos de Cristal won numerous international prizes. The Tropicana was one of six Cuban buildings included in the 1954
Museum of Modern Art exhibit entitled
Latin American Architecture since 1945. Henry Russell Hitchcock wrote the book
Latin American architecture since 1945 for the occasion. Borges won the Premio , from the
Colegio de Arquitectos in 1953 for his work on the Tropicana.
The Arcos de Cristal can be seen in the Tropicana scene of the movie
Our Man In Havana.
Trafficante Santo Trafficante Jr. (November 15, 1914 – March 17, 1987) was among the most powerful
Mafia bosses in the United States. He headed the
Trafficante crime family and controlled
organized criminal operations in
Florida and
Cuba, which had previously been consolidated from several rival gangs by his father,
Santo Trafficante Sr. Reputedly the most powerful crime boss in
Batista-era Cuba, he never served a prison sentence in the US. Trafficante turned his father's criminal organization into a multi-billion dollar international organized crime empire. Trafficante was reportedly a multi-billionaire and wielded enormous power and influence all over the United States and Cuba by paying off police, judges, federal prosecutors, city officials, government officials, local and international politicians, mayors, governors, senators, congressmen, CIA agents and FBI agents. Trafficante maintained links to the
Bonanno crime family, in
New York City, but was more closely allied with
Sam Giancana in
Chicago. Consequently, while generally recognized as the most powerful organized crime figure in Florida throughout much of the 20th century, Trafficante was not believed to have total control over
Miami,
Miami Beach,
Ft. Lauderdale, or
Palm Beach. The east coast of Florida was a loosely knit conglomerate of
New York family interests with links to
Meyer Lansky,
Bugsy Siegel,
Angelo Bruno,
Carlos Marcello, and
Frank Ragano. Trafficante admitted his anti-
Castro activities to the
United States House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978. Though he vehemently denied any association with a
conspiracy against
President John F. Kennedy, at least one witness before federal investigators testified that Trafficante predicted the assassination in spring of 1963. Federal investigators brought
racketeering and conspiracy charges against him in summer of 1986. Santo Trafficante Jr. had been operating in Cuba since the late 1940s under his father, Santo Trafficante Sr., a mobster in Tampa, Florida. After his father died in 1954, he became the head in Tampa and took over his father's interests in Cuba. Trafficante moved to Cuba in 1955, where he came into contact with Batista and Meyer Lansky. During the rule of Cuba's authoritarian dictator
Fulgencio Batista, Trafficante openly operated the
Sans Souci Cabaret and the Casino International gambling establishments in Havana. As a leading member of the syndicate, he also was suspected of having behind-the-scenes interests in other syndicate-owned Cuban casinos: the
Hotel Habana Riviera, the
Tropicana Club, the
Hotel Sevilla-Biltmore, the
Hotel Capri Casino, the Comodoro, the
Hotel Deauville, and the
Havana Hilton. Trafficante was apprehended in November 1957, along with over 60 other mobsters, at the Apalachin meeting in Apalachin, New York. Cuba was one of the Apalachin topics of discussion, particularly the gambling and narcotics smuggling interests of La Cosa Nostra on the island. The international narcotics trade was also an important topic on the Apalachin agenda. In January 1958, Trafficante was questioned by the Cuban police regarding the Apalachin meeting. A full report was made by the Cuban police, dated January 23, 1958, includes transcripts of long-distance telephone calls made from the Sans Souci during the period August–December 1957. The report was given to the District Attorney's office. In addition, "on January 23, 1958, the Cuban Department of Investigation, Havana, Cuba notified the Bureau of Narcotics that Santo Trafficante was registered in their Alien Office under No. 93461." ==See also==