For nearly 15 years —from 1881 to 1895— José Martí, the great revolutionary, author, poet, journalist, thinker, and founder of the Cuban nation, lived and worked in New York City. While in New York, Martí made important literary and political contributions to Cuban independence and to the emerging Latin American nations.
This will be the second walking tour sponsored by the Cuban Cultural Center of New York highlighting José Martí´s New York experience, exploring the various neighborhoods connected with Martí in New York. It will be conducted by ethnologist Elena Martínez and Hostos and Martí scholar Orlando José Hernández.
This year we will explore a different neighborhood of Martí’s experience in New York City, as seen through his journalistic writings about New York events, including those previous to his birth.
- The first site on our tour is Miguel and Emilia Teurbe Tolón’s boarding house, at 39 Howard Street. Teurbe Tolón was a poet who was exiled in New York and worked for Cuban independence. It was his wife who, in this house in 1950, sewed the first Cuban flag, conceived by Narciso López and drawn by Miguel Teurbe Tolón.
- Then we will walk to the Brooklyn Bridge and discuss Martí´s article about that extraordinary feat of engineering.
- The next site is the Church of the Transfiguration, at 29 Mott Street, in Chinatown, where we will talk about Varela’s work and its connection to Martí.
- The tour will end with a discussion of Martí’s chronicle “A Chinese Funeral”, which describes the funeral of Li-In-Du, a community leader, a freemason and a decorated military.
The tour will last about one and a half hours. There will be stops where people can rest. At the conclusion of the tour, we will have lunch at a restaurant in the Chinatown vicinity (optional, pay-your-own). BRING WATER AND COMFORTABLE SHOES.
FREE ADMISSION–with RSVP
TO SIGN UP FOR THE TOUR:
Send an email with name(s) and cell phone number(s) to: info@cubanculturalcenter.org
Meeting place and time: 10 am
Corner of Canal St. and Broadway (by Bank of America, 272 Canal St.)
Directions by subway:
–Take the 6 Train downtown to Canal St. subway station.
–Follow exit signs to Canal St.
–Once on Canal St., walk West two blocks toward Broadway.
–We will meet at the corner of Canal and Broadway, by Bank of America
This event is part of our CreateNYC Language Access Series on Cuban History, Art, and Literature. It will be held in English and Spanish.
Orlando José Hernández, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of Hostos Community College-CUNY and co-coordinator of the Hostos 180 National Commission. Born in Puerto Rico, he has excelled as a writer and translator, and is widely considered one of the leading scholars on Eugenio María de Hostos‘s work, having recovered numerous unpublished and uncollected works by the multifaceted Puerto Rican writer. Hernández is the author of various critical essays on contemporary Latin American and Spanish authors, among them, José Lezama Lima, Hugo Margenat, Dionisio Cañas, David Cortés and Alfredo Margenat. He has also published several notable translations: En barco de papel/In a Paper Boat, by Eugenio María de Hostos; Antología, by Elizabeth Bishop; Hungry Dust/Polvo hambriento, by Graciany Miranda Archilla; and the forthcoming books New York Fragments by Dionisio Cañas, and ¿Quién preside? by Hostos. He is presently working on rescued texts by Hostos, soon to be published: Documentos de la Liga de Patriotas Puertorriqueños and Correspondencia entre Eugenio María de Hostos y el Dr. Manuel Guzmán Rodríguez, 1898-1903. Both works will be included in Cuadernos Hostosianos, sponsored by Comisión Nacional Hostos 180. Dr. Hernández presently resides in Hoboken, New Jersey and Río Piedras, Puerto Rico.
Elena Martínez is the Artistic Director of the Bronx Music Heritage Center a gallery and performance space which presents programs celebrating the Bronx’s musical and artistic legacy. She received a MA in Anthropology and an MA in Folklore from the University of Oregon and has been a Folklorist at City Lore since 1997 where her work included getting Casa Amadeo (the longest continually-run Latin music store in NYC) nominated to the National Register of Historic Places (the first nomination relating to the Puerto Rican experience on the mainland); and nominated master Puerto Rican lacemaker (the art of mundillo) Rosa Elena Egipciaco for a NEA National Heritage Award. She co-produced the documentary, From Mambo to Hip Hop: A South Bronx Tale, which aired on PBS in September 2006 and won the NCLR’s (National Council of La Raza) 2007 ALMA Award for Best TV Documentary. She was a producer for the documentary, We Like It Like That: The Story of Latin Boogaloo, which premiered at the SXSW Festival in 2015. She was also a producer on the short documentary, Eddie Palmieri: A Revolution on Harlem River Drive (Red Bull Academy 2016). Elena curated the exhibition, “¡Que bonita bandera!: The Puerto Rican Flag as Folk Art,” and was the Assistant Curator for the exhibit, “Nueva York: 1613-1945” at El Museo del Barrio (2010). She co-curated the exhibit, Las Tres Hermanas: Art & Activism, with Joe Conzo Jr. which was featured at the Bronx Music Heritage Center and the Center for Puerto Rican Studies in 2017.
This event is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York State Legislature.
With the promotional cooperation of
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[Image above: José Martí by José Delarra]