El Corazon de Bomba y Plena en Nueva York

We are reaching out to you regarding an organization, which is of great importance, for it was because of it that groups like yerbabuena and Los Pleneros de la 21 exist today. This institution is the Centro Cultural Rincón Criollo in the South Bronx.

The Rincón Criollo Cultural Center (CCRC) has been an oasis of Puerto Rican and Latino history and traditions in the South Bronx for over 25 years. Founded in 1987, this incredible "community garden" also serves as an important cultural center, internationally recognized as a school and performance space featuring the traditional music of Puerto Rico.

For a long time, our musical traditions have been constricted by commercial culture and generally limited to holidays and "folkloric" presentations. By functioning as a link between the older and new generations, the traditional Puerto Rican rhythms of plena, bomba and musica jíbara have remained engraved in the Puerto Rican subconscious, they have always been the sounds our thoughts dance to. The current revitalization of Puerto Rican identity and a significant increase in ethnic "self-confidence" has reinforced a deep collective yearning for identity and pride. As all elements of culture, our traditional and popular music satisfies a significant part of the need for collective self-awareness and cultural cohesion.

In addition to training youth in music and conducting regular performances featuring local and international performers, the members of Rincón Criollo celebrate most major holidays with events attended by hundreds of people. Today, Rincón Criollo is one of the oldest community centers, gardens and casitas in the South Bronx, serving close to 500 registered members and the community at large.

Its significance to the community has been recognized far beyond its immediate soundings. Rincón Criollo has been featured in exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, in an exhibit at El Museo del Barrio. It is the subject of numerous cultural studies, citywide festivals of Puerto Rican musical traditions and documentary films such as the award winning "Americanos" directed by Edward James Olmos which aired oin HBO, as well as Banco Popular's special "Raices". Rincón Criollo (literally the 'Creole Corner') is regularly visited by community leaders, foreign dignitaries and students of Puerto Rican and Latino culture.

During the mid-70s, when the South Bronx averaged 12,000 fires a year and the area lost some 40 percent of its housing stock and over 300,000 residents, the community fought a long battle against drugs and gangs in the burned-out zone that remained. While the South Bronx was burning in the 1970s and the area was consumed by abandonment and destruction, the founders of Rincón Criollo, under the leadership and initiative of Mr. José Manuel Soto, decided to take action. Before Rincón Criollo was created, the site where it is located was a crater filled with abandoned cars and garbage, another victim of the widespread disinvestment and rampant arson in the South Bronx in the late 1960s. In the 1970s, José Manuel Soto, better known as "Chema", and some friends cleared enough space for some folding chairs. While sitting by a bonfire there, they looked around and saw "Puerto Rico".

The crew cleared the lot, planted a small garden, and built a casita, or "little house" reminiscent of the wooden houses scattered through the Puerto Rican countryside. The neighborhood flocked to the site. They transformed a once abandoned and rubble-strewn lot into the image and likeness of their ancestral home. La Casita de Chema (Chema's little house), as it is known internationally is the reflection of a community's resistance and desire to survive. Since then, neighbors have used this corner to gather, garden, hold community events, and pass down musical and cultural traditions.

Rincón Criollo has helped stabilize and revitalize our neighborhood. This community endeavor has transformed a vacant lot into a valuable community space. Because Rincón Criollo functions as a social and cultural center for the entire neighborhood, it is a protected restful place where children can safely play, community members garden, converse and play dominoes away from the sounds and bustle of the city just outside its margins. It is a haven for neighborhood children and senior citizens and a effective deterrent to street crime (cars belonging to the local police precinct are regularly parked next door, with the tacit understanding that they will be monitored by the nearly always-crowded casita).

Folklorist and New York University professor Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett has noted, "Now that you can put a card in a slot and do your banking without ever meeting a teller, now that you eat fast food without ever meeting a waitress, now more than ever we need to protect the shoemaker, the barbershop, the casita, places that hold together the fabric of community." Urban dwellers, she notes, "live in a city, which they did not build, and over which they have little control." At a time of diminishing government and philanthropic support, the city needs to support communities' efforts to take control of their own environment and provide for their own cultural expressions. Environments like Rincón Criollo deserve a serious assessment of their social, cultural, aesthetic, and environmental value, and the need for their preservation. The role of Rincón Criollo has been compared to that of Bryant Park in midtown.

The Rincón Criollo Cultural Center, Inc. (CCRC) is a sort of fellowship for common support, protection, and social interaction. The Rincón Criollo Cultural Center is mutual and benevolent organization; geared towards helping community artists and practitioners of traditional arts by taking care of their individual and collective social and cultural needs. Rincón Criollo is an association with a corporate responsibility for the mutual liability of its members, which possesses a non-profit (501C3) fiscal status. It's main objectives are to encourage the practice of traditional arts, expand the number of mentors and role models available to youth within the community, and promote initiatives and entrepreneurship that empower practitioners to increase opportunity and improve the quality of their practice and traditions.

The Board of Directors of the Rincón Criollo Cultural Center, Inc. has recently become aware that the NYC Dept. of Housing Preservation and Development has released a Request for Proposals for the ANCHOR Program. Among the sites included in this project, Block 2364N, lot 70, located at 158th St. and Brook Ave., happens to be the place of existence of or organization for over 25 years. Although a "Green Thumb Garden", our institution is much more than a mere "community garden" and we wish to bring HPD's attention to that.

A ray of hope has been shed on our situation by the interest and initiative of the South Bronx Development Corporation. Representatives from our organization are currently working with them to develop a proposal to respond to HPD's ANCHOR RFP, which will include within the proposed project, a space for our unique cultural center. We are asking our friends and neighbors to urge HPD to take into consideration Rincón Criollo's legacy and its significant role within our community. The presence of an entity of our nature is of immeasurable value to, not only the immediate neighborhood, but to the New York City community at large. Letters of support should be sent ASAP to the name and address below:

Ms. Jerilyn Perine, Comissioner
NYC Dept. of Housing Preservation and Development
100 Gold Street, 5th Floor NY, NY 10038

Should you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me at (646) 283-6253 or visit the Rincón Criollo Cultural Center at 499 E. 158th Street, Bronx.

Sincerely,
Carlos "Tato" Torres
Public Relations Committee
Centro Cultural Rincón Criollo, Inc.