Celia Cruz already has her own street in New York, the city that saw her sing countless times and where she rests in peace.
Local politicians and friends of the late Salsa Queen on Wednesday unveiled a new sign with the words Celia Cruz Way on a street in the Bronx, also known as “salsa county.”
“His courage and persistence inspire us every day,” said Councilmember Fernando Cabrera during the street’s naming ceremony. “We are very proud of who she was and who she is in our hearts.”
Cabrera unveiled the sign at the corner of Reservoir Avenue and West 195 Street to the applause of some thirty people present and some shout of “Azúcar!”, The one that the singer often used in her presentations.
After the ceremony, several members of the orchestra from the nearby Celia Cruz High School of Music played “La vida es un carnaval” and “La negra tener tumbao”, two greatest hits by Cruz, in an open space at the school.
At least three other streets and squares in the United States are named after the legendary Cuban sauce boat, said Omer Pardillo, a former Cruz manager and president of the Celia Cruz Foundation, who was present at the ceremony. The streets are in Miami, Los Angeles, and Union City, New Jersey, where a Cuban community was established decades ago. There are also others in Spain, Costa Rica and Mexico, he noted.
“But this street is very special because this is the city in which Celia Cruz chose to live part of her life, since the year 60. She settled in this city and lived until her last day,” he said. “It is a city that brought him great joys. I have always said that New York City carries the sound of Celia Cruz on its walls ”.
Cruz, who died in 2003 at age 78 at her home in Fort Lee, NJ, is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.
“He never wanted to be underground. That is why he chose that place, where he found a space to make a mausoleum, ”said Pardillo.
Cruz arrived in the United States in 1960, a year after the Cuban revolution. He recorded more than 70 albums, has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and in 1994 he received the National Medal of Arts, the highest government recognition for an artist in this country, from then-President Bill Clinton.
Among the people who unveiled the Celia Cruz Way sign on Wednesday morning was Puerto Rican Ruth Sánchez Laviera, who was a friend and stylist of the sauce boat.
“This is a great honor, which she deserved, deserves, and will continue to deserve,” said Sánchez Laviera, sister of the poet Tato Laviera. “She loved her town and her people. There is not a day that I do not have to mention his name ”.
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