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Wynwood's grande dame, Dorothy Quintana
(left).
Roberto Vega (right) wishes the city would
focus more on the park and less on art fairs. Photo by
Rebecca Wakefield |
The Dorothy Quintana Community Center in Wynwood’s
Roberto Clemente Park is quite literally falling apart. Even the
sign reads, cryptically, “The Cit of iami ot Qui t na Communit
Center.”
Not that it
matters, as the building is closed and fenced off behind “No
Trespassing” signs. I’m told by the neighbors it’s been
inaccessible for several years, since the city determined the
building was suffering from termite damage and more or less
wrote it off. Children who use the park for basketball or
baseball games must use the foul-smelling portable toilets lined
up against the fence.
Carmen Garcia,
whose family lives within sight of the park, is frankly
disgusted. “They are supposed to be fixing the community center
for the last three years,” she complains. “I think it’s
ridiculous they made so many promises they are going to fix that
and they still haven’t.”
Now this week
the baseball fields are covered in massive white tents for the
SCOPE Miami art fair, one of more than two dozen to spring up in
Wynwood as Art Basel mania overtakes Miami. Admission is $12.
That irks
Garcia as well. “I’m not saying art is not important, but I
don’t think this is going to help us,” she argues. “It’s
upsetting. Basically, the city is getting money out of all the
[art tourists], but where’s the money for the neighborhoods?”
Dorothy
Quintana herself, age 98, is in better condition. Dottie, as
many call her, has lived on
Northwest 34th
Street,
just a couple of blocks from the park, since 1957. Her two-story
home is a shrine to the activism that keeps her tiny body
vigorous.
A long time
ago, when Wynwood was the center of Puerto Rican political
power, Quintana was one of many community leaders who regularly
challenged City Hall to serve their working class neighborhood.
But by the mid-’80s, the elderly leaders began to disappear and
were never replaced. The neighborhood also lost a lot of its
Puerto Rican flavor as new residents from Central America, the
Dominican Republic and Haiti started to take the place of
residents who moved away or died.
More recently,
arts pioneers like Brook Dorsch (later followed by nearly every
notable gallerist in town) began to put galleries in Wynwood
warehouses, sparking a slow wave of gentrification that has thus
far been largely commercial. The massive Midtown Miami project
followed, with its big-box stores and ambitious condos that may
or may not prove a short-term boondoggle.
Quintana tended
to focus on front-line issues like police presence, housing and
the elderly, but she also was a key supporter of the Bakehouse
Art Complex, the original arts pioneer in Wynwood.
When Quintana
was 93, the city of
Miami
named the remodeled park center after her. Mayor Manny Diaz and
City Commissioners Angel González and Johnny Winton posed with
the little spitfire. But none of them proved helpful when
Quintana called the city to complain about the building being
closed down. “I told Winton, ‘Why you put my name on a rotting
building?’” she recalls.
Quintana keeps
a little black book, stuffed with business cards from every
public official she’s met. She likes to know who to call. She
tells them to come to her house, and many do. They know she will
find a ride to their offices if they don’t.
“Last year, the
mayor, Manny Diaz, came to my house and promised me the park
would be fixed by June of this year,” she recounts.
She says she
got the same answer from Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones,
whose district includes part of Wynwood. When those promises
proved empty, Quintana says various city officials told her
there was no money for the park right now, but maybe in two
years.
Quintana says
she got more help out of Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, Wynwood’s
other representative on the Miami City Commission, and she’s
hoping he’ll champion the cause her own commissioner won’t. This
week, several neighborhood activists from Miami en Accion have
invited Sarnoff to a meeting in Wynwood.
But it’s
frustrating. “In Wynwood, no one wants to go to the meetings,”
Quintana says. “Years ago, I was able to get people to go. But
those people moved out! I am a troublemaker. If you don’t fight,
it is no use.”
Roberto
Clemente
Park
has existed as a park since 1917, but was renamed after the
Puerto Rican baseball star in 1974, two years after his death in
a plane crash while on a humanitarian mission. It has been at
various times a haven for the neighborhood kids who play ball
there, and an eyesore frequented by underemployed
ne’er-do-wells.
Roberto Vega, age 62 and a longtime resident, says the park used
to be a great place to take the kids, but now with crime in the
neighborhood on the rise and half the park shut down, parents
hesitate to do that. “The park got the name Roberto Clemente,”
he says, “He was a leader. He helped people. It’s like they are
trying to get rid of him.”
Vega rolls his
eyes when I ask about Art Basel. He tells me how the art people
park their cars all over the neighborhood, sometimes blocking
driveways.
“Everybody’s
crazy over there,” he says. “They got time for that art but no
time to fix the park.” |
