The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center

The story

An 1897 neo-gothic schoolhouse on Suffolk Street is home to what may be the only bilingual puppet theatre in the United States. Designed by Charles B. J. Snyder, the building sat empty after a 1970s fire until Solidaridad Humana began using it to educate Spanish-speaking immigrants in 1981. By 1993 it had become The Clemente, a Puerto Rican and Latino cultural center named for the poet and activist Clemente Soto Vélez. Today it shelters Teatro La Tea, LEFT, and SEA — three companies rooting Loisaida's artistic life in the same walls that once held a neighborhood school.