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“When I was a kid, my enslaved was truly with my grandparents,” said Lin-Manuel Miranda, the songwriter, actor, manager and producer. “I would spell to Puerto Rico with my household for a period each year. As my sister and I got older, I conjecture you could accidental we got sent determination for a period a year.”
Those months went connected to pass Mr. Miranda’s sensation successful food, creation and culture. “I didn’t enactment successful a hotel, I stayed successful town, I ate Puerto Rican food. That’s antithetic than being a tourist.”
Over the years, Mr. Miranda has go 1 of the astir salient advocates for Puerto Rico. Next month, helium volition bring his philharmonic “Hamilton” backmost to San Juan’s Centro de Bellas Artes Luis A. Ferré for 2 weeks, hosting a fund-raiser to enactment the Hispanic Federation and the Flamboyan Foundation, a foundation devoted to acquisition equity successful Puerto Rico.
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Mr. Miranda’s San Juan is 1 with a batch of past and authenticity — and, of course, 1 that leans heavy into the arts, including 2 places of peculiar value to the composer: Placita de Güisin, a assemblage abstraction with shops and food, and Galería Lin-Manuel Miranda, with exhibitions dedicated to Mr. Miranda’s creation and his household history. Mr. Miranda has donated astir of his awards — Tonys, Grammys, a Pulitzer — to the Galería. With 1 notable exception.
“For Christmas, my dada gave maine the Emmy I won for ‘Hamilton’ — it got sent to his location 9 months prior. He was like, ‘We recovered it was successful our house, truthful Merry Christmas!’ I was like, ‘Your acquisition is an grant I won?’” said Mr. Miranda, laughing truthful hard helium had occupation getting the words out. “So I inactive person the ‘Hamilton’ Emmy … due to the fact that I got it for Christmas.”
Here are 5 of Mr. Miranda’s favourite places to sojourn successful and astir San Juan.
1. Hotel El Convento
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When helium was a “young, astir adult,” Mr. Miranda said, “I would rent a car and thrust astir Old San Juan myself and conscionable instrumentality it each successful — the assemblage buildings, the cobblestone streets.”
One of those buildings was besides 1 of his favourite luxury hotels: Hotel El Convento, a erstwhile convent that dates backmost to the 17th century. It’s a “charming edifice overlooking the bay,” helium said, adding that “the hotel’s Spanish Colonial architecture serves arsenic a reminder of the archipelago’s past.” It’s besides “steps from the beating bosom of the city’s nightlife and historical sites.”
2. Centro de Bellas Artes Luis A. Ferré
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A fewer years ago, Mr. Miranda performed “Hamilton” successful the theatre of the Centro de Bellas Artes Luis A. Ferré and precocious returned for the unveiling of a caller mural by Éktor Rivera, dedicated to Rita Moreno. “It is gorgeous,” helium said of the center. “I saw a accumulation of ‘West Side Story’ there, and there’s ever thing going on.”
“When we were doing ‘Hamilton,’ determination was a kid’s Christmas accumulation sharing backstage abstraction with america — you truly consciousness portion of the theatre assemblage connected the land erstwhile you’re there,” helium said.
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“This is wherever each my puerility summertime pictures are,” said Mr. Miranda of the generous agelong of soil successful Vega Alta astir fractional an hr from the halfway of San Juan. He’d walk astir of his clip astatine his grandparents’ location portion they worked, but occasionally summer, “we’d spell to the formation — and it’s beautiful. It’s my puerility beach.”
The water lapping astatine these shores is particularly gentle. “The waves are truthful chill, you tin fto the kids and the canine tally around, and it’s truthful casual to get into and retired of the h2o successful Puerto Rico. I conscionable spot that coastline, and it’s home.”
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“Cafe Manolín is the champion illustration of large Puerto Rican food,” Mr. Miranda said of the upscale diner successful Old San Juan that helium counts arsenic a caller find — “it’s already my caller aged hang,” helium said. “You’re going to get plantains successful immoderate form, whether you privation them saccharine arsenic maduros oregon salted and fried. You’re going to get a atom — could beryllium achromatic rice, it could beryllium brownish rice. And you’re going to get beans — you could get reddish beans, you could get achromatic beans, you could get lentils.”
“Those are the nutrient groups successful my acquisition successful Puerto Rico: rice, beans, plantains, meat,” helium said. “For me: achromatic atom with reddish beans and maduros — I similar plantains saccharine — and chickenhearted oregon steak chicharrones.”
5. The Puerto Rico Museum of Art
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For years, Mr. Miranda has been progressive successful raising wealth for the arts and arts organizations successful Puerto Rico, and “one of the things we discovered was that there’s a treasure trove of Puerto Rican creation from the 17th period onward that was conscionable sitting successful vaults,” helium says. “Not a batch of it is being displayed.”
The Puerto Rico Museum of Art, successful the Santurce neighborhood, opened successful 2000, though the caller imperishable postulation didn’t unfastened until 2019. “They person an grounds from the 17th period to existent masters, and you truly spot a done line,” said Mr. Miranda. “It’s chaotic to spot techniques that were celebrated each implicit the satellite and however they manifested successful Puerto Rico, with a section Puerto Rican spirit — adjacent successful a representation of a politician from the 17th century.”
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