The Loisaida, Inc. Center

10/09/2026

🎼 SATURDAY, OCT. 10TH at DRY DOCK 🏀

Join us for the 5th Annual Lower East Side Hispanic Heritage Festival — a day celebrating our heritage, our youth, our culture, and our community!

📅 Saturday, October 10
⏰ 12:00–5:00 PM
📍 Dry Dock Park — E. 10th St. & Avenue D

Come out for an afternoon of live music, food, arts & crafts, dominoes, activities for kids, prizes, and more as neighbors and families come together to celebrate the cultures and traditions that make the Lower East Side home. 🏀

PLUS: Loisaida Youth Basketball Tournament! Cheer on our neighborhood’s boys’ and girls’ teams as they take the court for a community youth basketball tournament presented as part of the celebration. FREE & OPEN TO THE COMMUNITY.

Bring the familia, bring your neighbors, and come represent Loisaida! ❤️

COMMUNITY • CULTURE • YOUTH • FAMILY • STRONGER TOGETHER

09/15/2026

FRAGILE — Recent Sculpture by Alexis Mendoza

September 15 – November 15, 2026
Loisaida Center | 710 East 9th Street, New York, NY 10009

This fall, Loisaida Center presents Fragile, an exhibition of recent sculpture by Alexis Mendoza examining the interconnected forces that shape food insecurity and access to nutritious food.

Working in iron and steel, Mendoza creates sculptural forms that embody a central tension: the resilience of people and communities confronting hunger alongside the fragility of the social, economic, and environmental systems meant to sustain them. The interconnected works point to conditions including economic inequality, climate change, political instability, gender disparities, and unequal access to education, asking viewers to consider food insecurity not as an isolated problem but as the consequence of overlapping systemic forces.

Through material, form, and visual storytelling, Fragile becomes both a reflection and a call to action—inviting us to consider how education, social equity, environmental sustainability, and strong community networks can contribute to more lasting and equitable solutions.

Now on view through November 15, 2026, at the Loisaida Center.

09/05/2026

🚨 TONIGHT AT LOISAIDA CENTER! 🎬🇵🇷

ESTA ISLA — BORI CORRIDOR SCREENING TOUR
📅 Saturday, September 5 | 7:00 PM
📍 Loisaida Center | 710 East 9th Street, NYC
🎟️ FREE — SOLD OUT!

Tonight, we welcome the Esta Isla Screening Tour to the heart of Loisaida for a special New York City presentation of the award-winning Puerto Rican film Esta Isla — completely FREE!

The event is officially SOLD OUT! If you registered, please arrive at least 20 minutes early to check in and secure your seat. The film will begin promptly at 7:00 PM.

Didn’t get a chance to register? Come by anyway! We will have an overflow room available for those who were unable to reserve a spot, subject to capacity.

Join us as we gather around Puerto Rican cinema, storytelling, and contemporary cultural expression right here in Loisaida. 🇵🇷🎥

Presented as part of the Bori Corridor Screening Tour, in collaboration with Ágora Cultural Architects, the Mellon Foundation, Experimento Lúdico, Loisaida Center, and La Cultura Nos Conecta.

¡Nos vemos esta noche! / See you tonight!

08/28/2026

Loisaida, Inc. is excited to partner with multidisciplinary artist Lizania Cruz and the Adobe Creative Resident at MoMA for a day of community building at La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez Community Garden.

Through readings, conversations, hands-on activities, and music, this program will invite audiences to listen to and learn from the individuals and organizations building resistance networks for environmental justice between the island of Manhattan, Puerto Rico, and its diaspora. Together, participants will honor the Lower East Side legacy of community gardens as spaces of community building and environmental resilience.

This program takes place in person at La Plaza Cultural on Saturday, September 12 from 12:00 pm to 5:00 pm. This is a FREE and OPEN event; please register thru the link below.

https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/11641

Flyer design by Lizania Cruz.

08/13/2026

The community of Loisaida is mourning the passing of life-long Puerto Rican community organizer Carlos "Chino" García.

We are grateful to see his extraordinary life and legacy recognized in this obituary by the The New York Times documenting his transformation from a young Puerto Rican growing up in New York into one of the Lower East Side’s most consequential grassroots community organizers.

For those of us in Loisaida, Chino’s story is inseparable from the history of the neighborhood itself. Chino famously co-founded CHARAS/El Bohío and helped transform the former P.S. 64 into a thriving cultural and community center. Across more than six decades, his work advanced tenant organizing, community-controlled housing, neighborhood gardens, environmental initiatives, education, job training, and the arts.

But Chino’s greatest legacy cannot be contained in any one building or institution. It lives in the generations of people he taught to believe that communities have the power to organize, reclaim, create, and determine their own futures.

Our deepest condolences to Chino's family and friends. Chino Presente!

We encourage our community to read and share this remembrance of a remarkable Puerto Rican New Yorker whose work helped shape Loisaida for generations.

He led a Puerto Rican group known as Charas in turning a crumbling public school into a community center, rehabilitating a desolate slice of New York.

05/21/2026

2PM — Fernandito Ferrer

Trova, corazón, and Puerto Rican soul at TheaterLab. 🎶🇵🇷

At 2PM, Fernandito Ferrer brings his powerful singer-songwriter voice to the 39th Annual Loisaida Festival TheaterLab.

Join us at La Plaza Cultural for an intimate performance rooted in song, memory, and cultura.

📍TheaterLab: La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez
Southwest 9th Street & Avenue C / Loisaida Ave
📅 Sunday, May 24th, 2026
🕑 2PM

Nos vemos en Loisaida — Pa’lante!

05/21/2026

1PM–3PM — Cypher with Rebel

Bars, rhythm, and community energy on the street level. 🎤🔥

Join us for Cypher with Rebel at the Dorill Initiative Booth, part of the 39th Annual Loisaida Festival’s street-level activations.

Come through, listen up, and feel the power of youth voice, freestyle, and creative expression right on Avenue C.

📍Street Level: 8th–9th Street & Avenue C / Loisaida Ave (Dorill Initiative Booth)
📅 Sunday, May 24th, 2026
🕐 1PM–3PM

Loisaida speaks. Loisaida creates. Pa’lante!

05/21/2026

1PM — Dorill Initiative Young Citizen Artists

TheaterLab energy starts with our neighborhood's youth! 🎭✨

Join us at 1PM for Dorill Initiative at the Loisaida Festival TheaterLab, bringing movement, creativity, and community spirit to La Plaza Cultural.

📍TheaterLab: La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez
Southwest 9th Street & Avenue C / Loisaida Ave
📅 Sunday, May 24th, 2026
🕐 1PM

Come support the next generation of performers and storytellers. Pa’lante!

05/21/2026

🎭 TheaterLab comes alive at the 39th Annual Loisaida Festival with ARTISFERIO! 🌿✨

Catch this exciting performance at 12PM at La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez, Southwest corner of 9th Street & Avenue C. Theater, movement, creativity, and community all come together in true Loisaida fashion. 🎬🎨

📍 TheaterLab @ La Plaza Cultural
🗓 Sunday, May 24, 2026
⏰ 12:00 PM

Join us as we continue celebrating Our AmeRícan Thing through art, performance, and neighborhood spirit. Pa’lante siempre. ❤️