Manhattan · New York County
La Plaza Cultural
NYC Parks
- Location
- Avenue C and East 9th Street, East Village / Loisaida
- Size
- 0.5 acres
- Hours
- Seasonal, varies
- Type
- NYC Parks
La Plaza Cultural is one of the most vibrant community gardens in the Lower East Side's Loisaida neighborhood, a gathering space that has served as a cultural venue for Puerto Rican and Latin American arts, music, and community organizing since the 1970s.
The garden was established on a vacant lot during the urban crisis of the 1970s, when abandoned buildings and empty lots created opportunities for community self-organization. La Plaza Cultural became a center of Nuyorican cultural expression.
The garden features a performance stage that hosts bomba and plena drumming, salsa music, poetry readings, and theatrical performances throughout the warmer months. The programming celebrates the Puerto Rican heritage of the Loisaida community.
La Plaza Cultural was one of the community gardens threatened with destruction during the Giuliani administration's effort to sell garden lots for development in the late 1990s. Community activism preserved the garden for public use.
La Plaza Cultural represents the creative spirit of Loisaida at its most vital: a community-built cultural venue where Puerto Rican music, poetry, and gathering traditions have been kept alive on a formerly vacant lot for over four decades.