Dino Pogolotti

Domenico "Dino" Pogolotti (1879–1923) was a real estate entrepreneur best known for the development in 1911 of what is still known today as the "Barrio Pogolotti" in Havana, Cuba. He's the father of the Cuban painter Marcelo Pogolotti and grandfather of Cuban intellectual Graciela Pogolotti.

Early life Dino Pogolotti was born in 1879 in Giaveno, a small town near Turin in Piedmont, Italy, son of bakers. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, it's estimated that about 10 million Italians emigrated abroad in search of work. In 1895, Pogolotti left his home country for New York, USA, first working as a waiter and a porter then improvising as a French language teacher. Thanks to Grace's family connections, he managed to become the secretary of the American consul in Cuba. In one of the houses of the Barrio, on avenida 61, the remains of Antonio Guiteras, founder of Joven Cuba, and Carlos Aponte