El Makeover

“Sometimes, you build and hope that the public will come,” said Julian Zugazagoitia, the director of El Museo del Barrio. “For us, it has been the other way around.”

In the past decade, El Museo’s visitors have grown “exponentially” from 20,000 to 125,000 yearly, according to Zugazagoitia. So the museum’s directors refurbished the building to accommodate the flood of footsteps. For its 40th anniversary as the only museum in New York dedicated to Puerto Rican, Caribbean and Latin American art, El Museo del Barrio has not only remodeled its building, but also revamped its brand and prepared special exhibitions for its Oct. 17 reopening. Read more