Padre Pico Steps (Padre Pico Escalinata) is located at the connection of Santa Rita street with the Hospital street.

Padre Pico street (Calle Padre Pico), being one of the doors of the neighborhood El Tivolí, is also one of the well-known streets in Santiago de Cuba, but this fact owes more to Padre Pico’s stairway (Padre Pico Escalinata) that is located at the connection of Santa Rita Street with the Hospital Street (formerly Padre Pico Street), where the street begins to rise.

When the town Santiago was first established in 1515, houses were built on higher levels because the area around the bay was swampy, and immense populations of ants caused great problems. The great threat created by the pirates also played a role in the decision. The city expanded laterally and upwards over time, so that the urban development entailed the city to adopt to the irregular topography of the land that consist of hills and severe inclinations that became sometimes very steep, so that staircases emerged to connect the streets. These staircases were facilitating the passage through the city by comprising also the shortcuts. In historic center there are six such staircases: the steps of the Callejón de Santiago between Santa Rita and San Carlos streets, the stairway of the Calle Virgen, the staircase of Calle Los Maceo, the staircase of Calle Hamaca (formerly Lauro Fuentes street, also known as Toro), the stairway on Calle Princesa between Calle Santa Rosa and Calle Virgen and the stairs of Padre Pico in Tivolí, the imperishable symbol of the Santiago de Cuba.

Before acquiring its peculiar steps and the current name of Padre Pico, this segment of the city was called under different names, such as Loma de Boca Hueca, Cuesta de Amoedo, Loma de Piedra and Calle de los Leganitos, but the name that survived in the popular memory was the one of Loma del Corvecho that took its name from the Galician Juan Corvacho. He was a winemaker and grocer that had its grocery store on the corner of Santa Lucia Street where it connects with the Hospital street. It is said that his life was dedicated entirely to commerce, and he had no other fun than his work.

The stairway was built under the auspices of the mayor Emilio Bacardí Moreau in 1899 and officially opened in 1903. It was Emilio Bacardí that anticipated of baptizing the old street of the hospital with the name of Padre Pico in honor to Dr. Bernardo Antonio del Pico y Redin (1726-1813) for his exemplary life and the love that he had for the parishioners and the people in general. Currently the old name “Hospital Street” (it bears that name because the Hospital de San Juan de Dios is located on that street) has not been erased from the popular memory, so that currently both names are used.

Bernardo del Pico Redin was a former priest that had a great popularity due his beneficent work by holding positions such as the Consultant of the Holy Office in the Catholic Church, Priest Rector of the Church of Santo Tomás Apóstol, Prebendado Racionero, Fiscal Promoter, Episcopal Vicar, Provisor and Vicar and Dean of the Cabildo (appointed by the Spanish King). His effort in Hermanas de la Caridad, known as the Colegio de Belén, which was one of the first schools of nuns founded in El Tivolí, can’t be forgotten. He was also the founder of the Casa de Beneficencia in Santiago de Cuba. A monument was erected in the memory of him in front of the Church of San Francisco (Iglesia San Francisco de Asis).

Padre Pico street witnessed the struggle of the Cubans for independence. The corpse of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes was veiled at the intersection of Padre Pico and Santa Rita streets. Almost a century later Antonio Alomá fell on these steps in 1956, when Santiago de Cuba rose up in arms to support the landing of the Granma yacht on the southwestern coast, called Las Coloradas.

The stairway has 52 steps, grouped in 13 blocks (4 steps in each block), and 12 rests.

view of the bay from Loma del Corvecho