A Community Revitalization
& Cultural Project

We’re a cultural and community-driven project based in Parada 20, Santurce.

Villa Cangrejos is built on the legacy of San Mateo de Cangrejos, the first town in Puerto Rico founded by. people of African descent.

The project moves that legacy forward through art, through cultural housing, through spaces made for gathering and building together.

Our Story is the Story of San Mateo de Cangrejos

Fundación Cultural García proudly introduces Villa Cangrejos, an ambitious architectural and cultural project rooted in the heart of Santurce, Puerto Rico. This initiative aims to honor and enhance the legacy of the historic San Mateo de Cangrejos, the first Puerto Rican municipality founded by free Blacks, freed enslaved people, and maroons in 1773. The project pays tribute to the heroics of La Compañía de Morenos de Cangrejos, an organized Black militia that defended Puerto Rico under the flag of the Kingdom of Spain during its Caribbean Empire era.

The Project

  • Casa Museo Cangrejero

    A community museum with room for art, culture, and community life, this Casa was built to hold conversations, exhibits, small events, and anything that moves the neighborhood forward.

  • Residencies and Rooftop

    Nineteen rooms for artists, researchers, and cultural workers connected to the project’s purpose. Its rooftop offers space to gather, exchange ideas, and create something lasting.

    a black woman sitting at a round table working on a laptop, surrounded by books and Afro-Caribbean decorative objects, illustrating the creative and intellectual space offered by Villa Cangrejos' artist residencies.

  • Cultural and Culinary Center

    Housed in what was once Puerto Rico’s Historical Museum, this is a place where food meets story, or the other way around.

    Wooden ancestral sculpture displayed in a museum setting, surrounded by carved artifacts and bowls, symbolizing cultural heritage and tradition.

Right in the middle of Santurce, our cultural space rises, built on stories they tried to pave over.

Cuando no nos daban espacio, hicimos barrio.

*

Cuando no nos daban espacio, hicimos barrio. *

When we weren’t given space, we made our own.