Looking into the good old days of University Avenue
Published on Sunday, January 3rd 1999 on The San Juan StarOne thing about cosmology, years keep flowing. Like water. You can't stop them and you cannot go back and revisit. You can only reminisce. And, pal, when you get to be my age, there is a lot to reminisce about. I remember where I was born. It was the Clínica Pereira Leal, across the street from the Río Piedras Campus. In fact, it even became part of the campus when it was acquired by the University. I lived across Ponce de León from campus, and across University Avenue from the Pensionado Católico, in the second house from the corner where the García Fortuño family, which included two dentists, lived. The right-of-way of what is now Avenida Gándara was the limit of civilization then. Beyond that, there was nothing but green fields and the Presidio looming in the horizon. Avenida Gándara was nothing but a railroad track. My grandfather would carry me to the track to watch the train go by every afternoon. He was an educator. They called him Mr. Vivas. He died of cancer when I was very little.
I remember the University tower without the clock. Just four gaping holes. I dearly remember Escuela Modelo. It was where the Facundo Bueso building now sits, at the south gate. I went to the Modelo until my fourth grade. Miss Monse was the darling teacher there. She later went on to develop a school of her own: the Josefita Monserrate Sellés. Across from the Modelo there was a wooden house where the keeper of the railroad track barriers lived. He would bring the barriers (agujas) down over Ponce de León when the train was coming and raise them again after the train had passed. One of his children was a friend of mine. He was tall and lanky and grew to become a basketball star and a prominent attorney. His name was Johnny Báez.
Beyond the railroad track, houses sprung up. It was called Santa Rita. Many faculty then moved there. I remember a few. Manrique Cabrera would stop and joke with me in the afternoon on his way home. Inés Mendoza would sometimes stop and chat with my mother. Margot Arce was probably the most beautiful face in town, and her husband, Compostela, had a thing about sculpting penguins. Margot and Compostela lived on this side of the tracks. My neighbor and playmate behind my house was Bobby Sackett, whose father, a professor of English, was probably the tallest man around. His mother was a sculptor and would sculpt heads of Bobby every year. The head display was a sort of evolutionary sequence, the kind that I would see in museums in later years, and reminded me of Darwin. They all lived in a building which was for faculty (Richardson and Arce also lived there) and the basement housed nurses for the Clínica Pereira, where I was born.
Ah, yes, the furniture factory! It belonged to the Margaridas, who were neighbors and kin to the Iturreguis. On the tract up to the factory lived Prof. Miguel Angel Santana, who taught French, and was a keen influence regarding which pre-med students were admitted into the School of Medicine. In a little two-story house nearby lived Mrs. Marchand, the mother of Papolo and Enio. Papolo is better known today as Graciani Miranda Marchand. I still remember him weeping the day a bus ran over his toes.
At one corner was the Cuerda family and at the other was the Monserrate house. The Cuerdas were all tall. Don Tomás, the patriarch, was a model to be emulated. Hard working, military, straight as an arrow, and still the most considerate soul around. His son Luis José –my friend Luichi– had a tough act to follow and has done so handsomely in life, in engineering, in business and in sports. Today he is Mr. Bowling in Puerto Rico.
The Monserrates were something else. All members of that generation were prominent in their fields. Fernando, a physician who loved art and was in charge of student health, was a real artist. Luisa Matienzo, a renowned fashion designer, had married into that clan, and was mother to Johnny, Victor, and Joaquín –Quinito– Monserrate Matienzo, an attorney who is highly regarded in federal and criminal cases, and in baseball. Victor, who was my classmate, died prematurely.
The Pagán family lived next to the Monserrates. There must have been a million of them. Héctor was part of our bunch. The highlight of the street was when one of their own came home a hero from World War Two, in full military uniform, and decorated. Then there was Doña Rita and Dr. Córdova. Dr. Rafael Córdova Marques was The professor –also my professor– of microbiology and lab technology. I got locked in his bathroom one day as a little boy and screamed my head off. That was probably my first encounter with panic. The place later became the Fraternity House for ABX.
Yes, these were all part of the University Avenue klatch.
There was also a farm behind the tracks. Doña Consuelo was the matriarch. The farm sector –González– eventually bowed to the development pressures brought about by a growing campus. Behind it, to the west, a road was built. It was the straightest stretch of road anywhere. They called it La Carretera Militar, now Muñoz Rivera. There were clandestine car races there. Behind the Militar then came Hyde Park and Baldrich. Nestled between Hyde Park, Baldrich, and the Militar was the worst slum in the area. It was called El Monte. That those families were relocated and the place made into what it is today still remains a miracle of urban renewal that must share honors with El Fanguito, which bordered Caño de Martín Peña on both sides. Puerto Rico was a lot poorer then, and our life expectancy hovered around the late forties.
A foul creek ran through El Monte. When it flooded, there was no passage between Hyde Park and Baldrich. It ran behind the house of Gilberto Concepción de Gracia. I used to collect guppies in that creek.
Have a great 1999.