The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural & Educational Center Inc. is a Puerto Rican/Latinx multi-arts cultural institution that has demonstrated a broad-minded cultural vision and inclusive philosophy rooted in NYC’s Lower East Side/Loisaida. While focused on the cultivation, presentation, and preservation of Puerto Rican and Latinx culture, we are equally committed to a multi-ethnic / international latitude, determined to operate in a polyphonic manner that provides affordable working space and venues to artists, small arts organizations, emergent and independent community producers that reflect the cultural diversity of the LES and our City.
As a downtown Latinx cultural staple for close to three decades, The Clemente is the pulpit where countless New York based Latinx, BIPOC, local LES, and international partners create multi-disciplinary contemporary work and co-productions in a collaborative environment. We are guided by our namesake's legacy of building culturally grounded multigenerational leadership, local power, and mutuality in times of crisis.
The Clemente is a proud partner of LxNY Consortium and the Coalition of Small Arts NYC (CoSA NYC)
Our three programmatic pillars are:
Responsive Arts
Presentations and initiatives that underscore active participation, promotion of civic engagement, builds networks and connection.
Heritage Conservation
Exhibitions and programs that spur remembrance and celebration of past and present assets and achievements, recognition of diasporic heritage and im/migrant bridges.
Provocative Collaborations
Pushing the envelope artistically & culturally while examining our own ever evolving identities, and embodied space for open line inquiries and juxtapositions.
BOARD
Anisha Steephen
Strategic Leader of Community Development
Diego Leonardo Robayo
Public Relations Manager of Historic Districts Council
Richard Morales
Community Partnerships Manager at The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center
Annya Ramírez-Jímenez
Director of Marvel Architects
Guido Hartray
Partner of Marvel Architects
Urayoán Noel
Associate Professor of New York University, Author, Contributing Editor of NACLA
Jorge Irizarry
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Beatriz De La Torre
Managing Director of Trinity Church
Jorge Vazquez
Director of the Power and Democracy Program at the Advancement Project’s National Offices
Veronica Relea
Partner of Latham & Watkins
Karina Aguillera Skvirsky
HISTORY AND BUILDING
The Clemente was founded in 1993 thanks to the leadership of Puerto Rican poet Ed Vega Yunqué, Uruguayan actor/director Nelson Landrieu, and Dominican actor Mateo Gómez. The organization was named after the Puerto Rican poet Clemente Soto Vélez, who for many years had been an inspiration for the Latino community of the Lower East Side given his literary output, artistic mentorship, and community organizing.
The organization is based in a 1897 City owned building formerly known as P.S. 160 and designed by the architect Charles B. J. Snyder in the collegiate neo-gothic style. It is a representative example of the large number of school buildings that were erected in New York City in the late nineteenth century.
In the 1970s a fire caused the school to be vacated and it remained so until 1981, when Solidaridad Humana, a community based educational organization, began to use the building as a school for Spanish-speaking immigrants.
Since 1993 the administration of The Clemente has been managing a growing program of long term and rotating studios for working artists, offered at a subsidized license fee. In addition, The Clemente is also the hub for on-going performing arts, exhibitions, educational, and community programming in its 4 theaters, 2 galleries, and rehearsal studios.
With funding from New York City’s Department of Cultural Affairs, The Clemente is set to soon undergo a major renovation to add ADA compliance to its facilities and enable it to expand its access and services for the local community and the city as whole.
Our Next Chapter
This fall, The Clemente will begin a long-awaited and exciting accessibility-centered renovation, which includes the installation of a six-story elevator, of our beloved historic building to expand our welcoming scope for future visitors and collaborators. The act of giving space, incubating, and co-creating is daring. These facility enhancements will boost our communities of practice as we steward them for future beneficiaries. After the renovation, we will come back with a bang!
Formerly known as P.S. 160, erected in 1897-1898 in the collegiate neo-gothic or Dutch neo-gothic style.
The Clemente's Building (historical P. S. 160)
Charles B. J. Snyder (November 4, 1860 – November 14, 1945) was an American architect, architectural engineer, and mechanical engineer in the field of urban school building design and construction. He is widely recognized for his leadership, innovation, and transformation of school building construction process, design, and quality during his tenure as Superintendent of School Buildings for the New York City Board of Education between 1891 and 1923. Snyder saw school buildings as civic monuments for a better society. He was concerned with health and safety issues in public schools and focused on fire protection, ventilation, lighting, and classroom size. Snyder used terra cotta blocks in floor construction to improve fireproofing, and large and numerous windows to allow more light and air into the classrooms. He also developed new methods for mechanical air circulation in school buildings.
The Cenacle on the fourth floor is a feature that appears in other Snyder buildings. In P.S. 160 it was said to have been used in conjunction with moveable classroom walls allowing for clear sightlines during large assemblies. The soundproofing proved inadequate for easily distracted children and they were replaced with solid walls but the moveable wall track is said to be seen in some studio ceilings.
Clemente SOTO VéleZ
Clemente Soto Vélez (1905-1993) was a poet, journalist and activist who mentored generations of Latino artists in Puerto Rico and New York City. He left a rich legacy that contributed to the cultural, social and economic life of Puerto Ricans in New York City and Latinos everywhere. Clemente founded literary and community organisations including the Puerto Rican Merchants Association. His life and work demonstrate his belief in self-sufficiency and community empowerment. Clemente Soto Vélez remains one of the most prominent of Puerto Rico’s poets, writing in the tradition of Neruda with powerful, passionate, socially visionary and surrealist vision. A sample of his work can be found in The Blood That Keeps Singing, where “the English-speaking reader can discover at last this major writer whose poetry and passionate social vision are inseparable, a man from whom the poet must be ‘light transformed into humanity.'” —MultiCultural Review
" Clemente Soto Velez" By Alfredo "Freddy" Hernández, 1996.
"Klemente" By Miguel Trelles, 2010.
I met him
living like an h incarcerated in the honey of his bees,
but the bars of honey were bittersweet,
and because
he lost himself
in love with liberation,
and because he did not abandon
his love nor she her lover,
the earth for him is a hurricane of persecuted stars,
since liberation cannot
love anyone
except whoever loves
the earth, with its sun and sky.
– The Wooden Horse (excerpt), translated by Martín Espada.
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