The Main Plaza / Plaza principal

Castillo San Felipe del Morro’s main plaza, the plaza de armas, was completed around 1780 and for more than a century was the center of daily life in the Spanish fortress. On the plaza floor, troops drilled, stood inspections, and assembled for formal events. The large vaulted rooms surrounding the plaza, called casemates, contained a kitchen, chapel, storage areas, officers’ quarters, and barracks for enlisted men, while some outer casemates were used for firing cannon. At the center of the plaza, soldiers drew water from a wellhead connected to three large cisterns beneath the plaza, making the area a very busy place during the late 1700s and most of the 1800s.