Que lindo!
A group of salsa aficionados wants to spice up things in the Bronx with an International Salsa Museum, featuring exhibits, a school and performance space that would highlight the borough’s deep Latin music roots.
They’re planning to ask the city to designate part of the abandoned Kingsbridge Armory for their creation, hoping to transform the sprawling complex into an homage to greats like Celia Cruz, Tito Puente and Johnny Pacheco, a record producer and nine-time Grammy nominee who died earlier this year.
“The salsa legends are fading away,” said Willy Rodriguez, co-founder of a non-profit behind the project and musical director of the Tito Puente Jr. Orchestra..
“We want to do something to honor them and keep the music alive.”
The plan has received a flurry of interest and donations from Latino communities across the city since it was announced earlier this week, said Rodriguez, 39.
A consortium of investors, including some former major league baseball players, are interested in helping get the museum built at the Armory, where they also hope to add sports options to the venue, a source told The Post.
Rodriguez has teamed up with a group of partners, including Damaris Mercado, whose father Ralph Mercado produced Puente and Cruz, and organized mega salsa concerts at Madison Square Garden and the Hollywood Bowl.
“It’s a really exciting project, and I really feel that now is the time to do it as a celebration after COVID, after the world stood still,” said Mercado, who runs the Mercado Project, a non-profit promoting her father’s legacy. She has signed on as an advisor to the museum.
A $350 million project to turn the armory into an ice rink, a project backed by New York Rangers star Mark Messier in 2013, has been mired in bureaucratic wrangling and other legal hurdles.
International Salsa Museum founders hope to use 50,000 square feet in the 180,000 square foot facility, which includes an 800 seat auditorium.
“This would be a great fit for the Bronx,” said Manny Tavarez, an entrepreneur, who is among the founding members of the International Salsa Museum.
“The ISM is committed to establishing our presence in the Bronx as this borough played such an integral part in developing Salsa and Latin Jazz into what it is today,” he said.
