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The bad news: Nuyorican Poets Cafe, the bohemian performing arts center in Alphabet City celebrating all forms of Puerto Rican culture, will close at the end of October.
The good news: the beloved space is scheduled to reopen in three years, following a massive $24 million renovation that staff members and fans of the space have been clamoring for years.
According to The City, the makeover will bring along with it new performance spaces on the first, second, third and fourth floors, a green room and changing area in the basement of the building, new elevators and fresh electrical and mechanical systems.
As reported by The City, the renovations will be funded by the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs, the City Council and the borough president’s office. At least to us, that’s a clear indication that officials are all in when it comes to New York’s cultural salons and hubs: places where folks of all stripes come together to celebrate the different populations that make New York what it is today.
As history has it, one Miguel Algarín founded the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in his own East Village living room in 1973. In 1981, Algarín and his cofounders bought the building at 236 East 3rd Street, a former tenement building. The organization will actually be celebrating its 50th anniversary on October 31, the day before its official closure.
Frequent visitors of the space, worry not, though: staff members are planning on staging pop-ups and collaborating with other New York institutions throughout the renovation process. If what it did during the pandemic is any indication, it’ll use the time wisely.