DJ Trava

Posts Tagged ‘undiscovered and struggling artists’

The oldest of the poetry cafes is Manhattan’s non profit organization of the Nuyorican Poets Café.  The name is a combination of New York, and Puerto Rican, although it refers to and embraces the latino culture of the United States, not just of the city.  Miguel Algarin started the organization in the neighborhood of Manhattan with the best hotel and restaurants, an area known as Loisaida, which is a mix of English and Spanish termonology meaning Lower East Side close to the East Village.

While the area now is filled with those of Hispanic descent, it has been home in the past to many different groups of immigrants including the Polish, the Irish, the Jewish and the German.  During the last few decades this has been one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city, and rumor has it that the letters in the group of the Alphabet Streets, stand for Assault, Battery, Coma and Death.  As is true in other cities, such neighborhoods while dangerous, also house some of the finest of the undiscovered and struggling artists,  be they painters, writers, actors or musicians, and in this case specifically, poets.

Miguel Pinero and Pedro Pietri were two of the co-founders of this Nuyorican movement.  In the late 1970’s Algarin opened his apartment to these two men and to the other artists of the neighborhood.  They would spend hours discussing issues of the day, and writing poems and plays.  Due to the popularity, his apartment soon became over crowded, and he himself being a professor at Rutgers needed more sleep.

A building was purchased for just one dollar, from a woman who supported the arts, and so they moved to the place located between Avenue B and Avenue C, where the Nuyorican Poets Café still stands today.  While the Cafe has always focused on the works of spoken word, these days one will find musicians performing and visual arts being hung and celebrated.  Their mission is to simply expose those who may not have the chance, the poor or the young or the elderly, to the world of art and the meaning behind it.