La Perla, San Juan, Puerto Rico
La Perla is a historical community astride the northern historic city wall of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, stretching about 650 yards (600 m) along the rocky Atlantic coast immediately east of the Santa Maria Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery and down the slope from (north of) Calle Norzagaray.
La Perla was established in the late 19th century. Initially, the area was the site of a slaughterhouse because the law required them and homes of former slaves and homeless non-white servants – as well as cemeteries – to be established away from the main community center; in this case, outside the city walls. Sometime after, some of the farmers and workers started living around the slaughterhouse and shortly established their houses there.
Local Salsa and Hip Hop concerts are held each week with the intention of shedding the historically bad image of the community. Art shows and an oceanfront community arts-and-crafts fair occur yearly.
Only three access points exist, one through the "Santa Maria Magdalena Cemetery", one on the east side and one through a walkway right in the center of the northern wall. The Puerto Rico police department conducted a raid as late as July 2011, where several high-profile community leaders were arrested for heroin distribution. The Drug Enforcement Administration estimates that the drug trade in La Perla is a twenty million dollar enterprise.
La Perla has a community oriented music recording studio, El Estudio D' Oro, which serves as a free of cost music production workshop for all ages. El Estudio D' Oro is also home to the FM urban radio show, Hip Hop 787 La Verdadera Escuela, which is broadcast live from the studio on WVOZ Mix 107.7 FM.
In 1978, salsa singer Ismael Rivera had a hit song, written by composer Catalino Curet Alonso, in honor of this community, and named after it. In 2009, Reggaeton group Calle 13 released another tribute song, also named La Perla, in collaboration with Ruben Blades. In the song, Blades references Rivera's early effort; in the song's video, Blades pays his respects to Curet by visiting his tomb at the community's Santa María Madgalena de Pazzis cemetery.
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