Where We Were Safe

Synopsis

For the last 80 years, Black and Latino barrios in New York City have suffered the drastic effects of racist urban policies now mirrored in hypergentrification. Consequently, their historical sites, cultural hubs, and family businesses, located in the five boroughs, have experienced a silent erasure. “We Were Safe” is an interactive oral history archive that focuses on collecting memories about the destroyed and historic Salsa music places in New York City, such as ballrooms, clubs, record stores, and outdoor venues. Combining digital mapping and cultural memory, this project aims to reconstruct historical space and recover these sites’ heritage through a lens of social, racial, and cultural dynamics that fed the Latin experience in the 1970s.

Artist Profile

Marcos Michele Echeverria Ortiz

Marcos Echeverria Ortiz is an award-winning multimedia journalist, photographer, and documentalist based in New York City. For the last eight years, he has invested efforts to develop transmedia projects and cover stories related to culture, music, social movements, immigration, and human rights. Originally from Ecuador, through Radio COCOA, Noisey VICE, and more, he has written, filmed, and photographed the underground music and cultural scene of Latin America. Marcos graduated with honors from the Media Studies MA program at The New School. He has recently covered social justice movements and his photos have been published in The New York Times and Business Insider. Through documentary and hybrid forms of media, he chronicles the Latinx experience in New York City through stories interjected by music, inequality, memory, and history.

Credits

Director/ Producer: Marcos Michele Echeverria Ortiz

Key Cast:

Miguel Melendez

Pete Bonet

Papo Vazquez

Aurora Flores

Mike Amadeo

Arnie Segarra

Amir Husak

Neyda Martinez

Fabiola Hanna