Embargo or Not, Castro Made a Habit of Visiting NY — Ask Bumpy the Bookie

Fidel Castro died late Friday night at 90. Here's a story about his relationship to New York, first published in 2014.

One aspect of President Obama's decision to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba involves an easing of travel restrictions. But that never stopped Fidel Castro, who regularly traveled to New York after spending a honeymoon here in 1948.

About that honeymoon: it was three months long, featured a lengthy stay at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, and was mostly paid for by his wealthy father-in-law. By the time Castro returned to New York in 1959, he was divorced and his father-in-law had fled into exile in Spain. But the revolution was still fresh — barely four months old — and American opinions about Castro were still forming.

Fidel Kisses A Beauty Queen

Castro's first visit as a head-of-state was relatively uncontroversial. Much of the press coverage comes off like one long photo-op: Fidel eats a hot dog; Fidel eyes a tiger at the Bronx Zoo; Fidel meets with adorable New York schoolchildren wearing fake beards.

But when Castro came back in September 1960 to address the United Nations, the tenor had drastically changed. Castro had been nationalizing U.S. companies in Cuba, and the U.S. had been retaliating with economic sanctions, such as a halt on selling oil to Cuba and limits on how much sugar that Cuba could sell here.

Castro stepped off his plane at Idlewild Airport, known today as JFK, in a testy mood. He told reporters that America was leaving him no choice but to cut economic deals with Soviet prime minister Nikita Krushchev.

"You leave us without petroleum, Krushchev gives petroleum," he said. "You leave us without sugar, Kruschev buys sugar."

Were The Cubans Really Bilked Or Was Castro's Fit Strategic?

Castro then traveled with the Cuban delegation to their Midtown hotel. There they learned the that price of their stay would be much higher than previously agreed, or so they claimed. Castro threatened to march to the United Nations in his military fatigues and set up camp on the grounds.

When word of his threat got out, Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam stepped in. That's according to CUNY professor Rose Mari Mealy, author of "Fidel and Malcolm X: Memories of a Meeting." She said Malcolm X and other civil rights leaders arranged for the Cubans to stay at The Hotel Theresa — nicknamed, "The Waldorf of Harlem" — at 125th Street and Seventh Avenue, now called Adam Clayton Powell Jr Boulevard.

Get Bumpy

But Mealy says the Cubans still needed money to help them pay for their one-week stay. "Negotiations occurred between a very famous numbers runner in Harlem, as the story goes, whose name was Bumpy," she said. Mealy says, don't get the wrong idea: Bumpy wasn't just any gambler. "He was a very well-known numbers runner, a respected numbers runner in the Harlem community."

Castro and the Cuban delegation headed uptown — and reaped a public relations windfall. "When they arrived in Harlem, thousands crowded the streets to cheer Fidel and Malcom X," Mealy said.

But President Eisenhower snubbed Castro by excluding him from a glittering Midtown reception of Latin American leaders. So the Cuban leader hosted his own luncheon at The Hotel Theresa. He invited a number of locals, who he called " the poor and humble people of Harlem." The event only burnished Castro's populist credentials.

But it wasn't all positive press for Castro. Demonstrators picketed his speeches, and tabloid readers recoiled at reports of the Cubans bringing chickens from home to cook in their rooms, or use in religious rites. Mealy said those claims were "ideologically motivated" and without evidence, though the myth of the hotel chickens persists.

Travel Restriction, What Travel Restriction?

Castro returned to New York in 1979, 1995, and 2000. He headed back up to Harlem during the 1979 trip to give an hour-long speech at the Abyssinian Baptist Church. By that time, with the Cold War over, he'd swapped his fatigues for business suits when attending official functions. But, perhaps feeling nostalgic, he switched back. He told the crowd in the church that, "If the last time I went to Harlem dressed in my fatigues, how can I go to Harlem dressed in a business suit?"

Mealy said that on his way to the speech, Castro had his driver make a detour to 125th Street and slow down when they passed the site of the Hotel Theresa. He wanted to look at it one more time.