Wall Street

San Juan Renaissance

Author: Steve Blount
Domingo Garcma's eyes stare straight through me. Garcma is a classical painter and one of Puerto Rico's most respected artists. His piercing gaze - frozen in terra cotta by San Juan's artistic doyenne Jan D'Esopo - pins a passerby to the far wall of La Princesa Gallery, transfixed like a butterfly in a glass case. The muscles in Garcma's neck are as taut as a cruise ship's hawsers; the sharp pleats of his guayabera eternally immune to the sultry atmosphere. Garcma is powerful. Questioning. Demanding: What do you know about me? You must know me.

Chagrined, I have to admit I know as little about Puerto Rican art as a stone in a Maine hayfield.

Forceful artistic expression just isn't part of Puerto Rico's image. It should be. The island is a hothouse for those with the creative impulse. And their work pops out at visitors in unexpected ways, especially in Old San Juan, where tropical-fruit-colored Colonial buildings - tangerine, lemon yellow, guava green - house galleries, art studios and dance clubs. Trendy new restaurants serve up fusion cuisine. Like the city itself, the chefs effortlessly blend old and new, mixing traditional Puerto Rican fare with American, Asian and nouvelle.

Now, eager to shed the worn-out West Side Story caricatures that haunt Puerto Rico and its people, the government has fomented a vast conspiracy designed to turn San Juan into a world-class fun machine. And Domingo Garcma is one of its secret weapons - he, and a quarter-billion dollars.

Just down the hall from Garcia, Jaime Gonzalez is comfortable in an expansive conference room. Behind him, the island's past tourism directors smile down from their official portraits.

"San Juan has been a major tourist destination for decades," he points out, "but in the past, there wasn't much emphasis on building tourism; it's still only 7 percent of the island's economy, compared to 25 percent for Hawaii. We think we have a lot of room to grow, but just having sun and sand isn't enough anymore."

Gonzalez oversees development for the Puerto Rico Tourism Company, and he has much more than palm trees on the menu. Most of the projects that are guzzling that quarter-billion in funding pass through his office. He ticks them off fluidly: a convention center, a trade center, the rebuilding of the Caribe Hilton and the Condado hotels, a festival marketplace along both sides of the lagoon that separates the Condado from Isla Grande, a baseball stadium, a 20,000-seat NBA-style arena, a mass-transit train, a children's science center and a new museum to display Domingo Garcia and the rest of the island's artistic wealth. A rebuilt cruise dock, portside festival market and three berths for the newest class of mega-liners will anchor one end of a revitalized waterfront. The master plan is to link the cruise port in San Juan Bay with a continuous string of new facilities that will wrap across Old San Juan's waterfront and connect with the convention center and festival marketplace area in the Condado.

That's a lot more than sun and sand. It's enough to make the island the premier entertainment destination in the Caribbean. But Gonzalez expects travelers won't be the primary patrons of the new facilities. That distinction will likely go to residents. They'll rub elbows with visitors, defusing the stereotypes and infusing them with the island's no problema attitude. And that, he believes, will keep the tourists coming back. While there's plenty of concrete and confetti in the plan, the real attractions are the city and the sanjuaneros themselves. The concrete is still being poured for most of the projects, but you don't need to wait to enjoy San Juan. The city and its residents are already entertaining 3 million travelers a year in their own unique style.

In the Parque de las Palomas, I can see Jaime Gonzalez' point. Dedicated to the city's pigeons, families come here to let children hand-feed the birds. Tall fig trees provide shade for the sidewalk and ample parking for pigeons. It's a bit untidy, and it pays to keep an eye on any birds that may be sitting on the branches directly overhead, but the children are entranced and entrancing. Doting grandfathers and new mothers laugh out loud as the pigeons stampede from one toddler to another.

As dusk settles, the families drift off and the sated pigeons bunk up in the trees. Couples stroll hand in hand beneath the long, arching corridor of trees that ends at the bay. Sundown's slanting rays fire the spray from the Raices Fountain like handfuls of diamonds tossed in the air. Night is coming, but it's not the end of anything, only another auspicious beginning.

From the park to my hotel, El Convento, is a short walk past the galleries and cafis at the foot of Fortaleza Street. The last block is filled with tables, sidewalk to sidewalk, as tourists and residents mingle over cold beer and comfort food. Up the length of Cristo, lights are coming on in the shops and galleries. Through the windows and open doors, paintings, sculptures and carvings swim in pools of warm, incandescent light. The 17th-century hardwood floors of Galerma Botello, showcase for one of the island's premier modern artists, look black in the dim light, the Modigliani-esque sculptures floodlit as though at center stage.

El Convento itself is an icon both for artistic vitality and the renewal that has transformed Old San Juan. The former convent was built in 1651 to house Carmelite nuns. It was closed at the turn of the century and did duty as a dancehall, a flophouse and a place to park the city's garbage trucks. It was destined for the wrecking ball before being rescued and turned into a hotel. A remodeling that began in 1997 has brought the small, charming inn up to luxury status. Arched tiers of rooms surround the central courtyard. Tucked into niches and alcoves are paintings and historic bric-a-brac: the massive iron gates that once hung at the convent's entrance, the nunnery's bell, 18th-century oil paintings, antique furnishings hand-carved from native woods, and even some modern pieces - oils, carvings, sculptures. My room is a perfect microcosm. The black-and-white marble of the floors pair with stucco walls sponge painted in pale yellow, beige and white. An antique sideboard holds a vase, a table and chairs centered in the sitting area. The semicircular window looks out at the Cathedral across the street; on the ledge above the desk is a series of candid black-and-white photographs of Puerto Rico's legendary cellist, Pablo Casals. I decide to go looking for something a little more modern.

There's no point in rushing out to catch San Juan's night life. In fact, if you leave before 10 p.m., you'll miss it. This is a late-night, all-night kind of place. Tourists eat early; sanjuaneros take their time deciding where to start their evening rounds.

Even though the sky is dark, the streets aren't; new street lights and the glow from restaurants and clubs spill over the sidewalks of the Old City. Small knots of visitors and residents hover in front of the cafis and clubs. The pre-Olympic basketball tournament is in full swing, and the local constabulary is in evidence. They nod and flash reassuring smiles.

Doorway to doorway, the sounds range from techno-pop to cool Latin jazz, and the composition of the crowds out front varies accordingly: louder/younger, softer/older. There are DJs and pure music sets, and occasionally, a live band pouring forth. At The Gallery, the DJ is tuning up for a party that starts at midnight.

All around on the walls, inside and outside, there's art: At La Ostra Cosa, a sculpture of two men leaning over a game of dominoes emerges from the wall. It's a reproduction of one of the set pieces from Paul Simon's Broadway musical, The Cape Man, which co-starred the restaurant owner's brother. Up and down the streets, old and young flow through the soft darkness, in and out of Cafi Tabac, the Parrot Club and Cafi Bohemio.

You will go to sleep before San Juan does. Guaranteed.

For some, the new cafis and casinos in the Condado will be the reason to revisit San Juan. But for me, the Museo de Arte, a US$50 million cultural palace in the nearby Santurce district, is the crown jewel of the redevelopment. There are already museums in Puerto Rico, but none has as its mission the exhibition and elevation of Puerto Rico's own artists.

"I think this museum will separate the masters from the students," says Luis Gutierrez, who, along with Otto Reyes, is architect for the project. "Every artist in Puerto Rico will want their work to be in the collection here, even if only in a vault."

For three years, the museum has been Gutierrez's consuming passion, and he knows that this is probably the most important project he will ever design. The 7-acre/2.8-hectare site of the city's old municipal hospital in Santurce was chosen for the museum. Of the 13 original buildings, the one with the surgical wards was saved. It has become the centerpiece around which the whole project revolves. With a need for more space, a five-story addition was planned. But rather than stick a modern five-story building onto the back of the graceful turn-of-the-century neoclassical hospital, the planners found a way to excavate below the hospital and put two stories of the new building underneath the old one. It was a masterful piece of engineering. Even in raw concrete, with workmen feverishly pouring floors and putting up stud walls, it's easy to sense the grand openness of the central spaces and the intimate scale of the painting galleries.

Until now it has been hard for visitors to view the best Puerto Rican art. It was dispersed in public and private collections in a dozen different locations in San Juan and throughout the island. When the Museo de Arte opens next summer, important pieces from government and private collections will move to the new space, along with new acquisitions. Finally, there will be one building with the

Posted online 10/01/99.

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