“Galería De Los Gigantes”,
“A Tribute To Talent And Mettle”

gale­ria-de-los-gigantes

“Galería De Los Gigantes” (click on image to see it larger)

Hav­ing 78 munic­i­pal­i­ties, and pre­serv­ing har­mo­ny and san­i­ty, is hard. Every town wants to be the the first, the largest and the great­est. But that’s imposi­ble in itself because some towns are sim­ply small, not every­one can be first and great­ness… well, that’s a com­bi­na­tion of God-giv­en tal­ent and per­se­ver­ance. . In this com­pet­i­tive land­scape called Puer­to Rico there’s an entire town that’s made up of giants. Not because of their size (Puer­to Rican males aver­age 5’10″ and females aver­age 5’3”), but because of their genius and met­tle. And the “Galería De Los Gigantes” (Gallery of Giants) cel­e­brates that town’s legacy!

Gallería De Los Gigantes is a muse­um locat­ed on the cor­ner of Igna­cio Arzua­ga and José de Diego streets in the orig­i­nal town of Car­oli­na (18.381256, ‑65.957089), right next to the orig­i­nal Town Hall building.

The muse­um is ded­i­cat­ed to eight promi­nent fig­ures that brought glo­ry to Car­oli­na, includ­ing: Felipe Bir­riel Fer­nán­dez, the orig­i­nal “Car­oli­na Giant” (more on him in a minute); Julia de Bur­gos, poet­ess; Rober­to Alber­ty “El Boquio”, poet, painter, pho­tog­ra­ph­er and cre­ator of objects; Rober­to Clemente Walk­er, world famous major league base­ball play­er; Cecil­ia Orta, painter and edu­ca­tor; Jesús T. Piñero, the first Puer­to Rican-born gov­er­nor of the Island appoint­ed by the pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States; Jesús María San­romá, clas­si­cal pianist and José E. Aponte de la Torre, edu­ca­tor and for­mer may­or of the City.

Each one of these illus­tri­ous “car­o­li­nences” made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions towards the bet­ter­ment of the City and of Puer­to Rico as a whole.

The muse­um is open Wednes­days thru Sat­ur­days from 10:00am to 5:00pm and Sun­days from 12:00pm to 5:00pm. Admis­sion is only $4.00 per per­son, but you can get an even sweet­er deal if you com­bine your vis­it with the Muse­um of Tech­nol­o­gy and Art (Museo de Tec­nología y Arte) across the street. And to com­plete your day you can vis­it “Casa Escuté”, a third muse­um ded­i­cat­ed to fine art itin­er­at­ing exhi­bi­tions that sits between the two. Oh, and Casa Escuté is free, so it will make the deal even sweeter.

Michelle Gil (click on image to see it larger)

Enter­ing the “Galería De Los Gigantes” I met with Mrs. Michelle Gil, Direc­tor of the Car­oli­na Tourism Devel­op­ment and Cul­ture Depart­ment, who was our pri­vate guide to all three muse­ums. Addi­tion­al­ly, we had spe­cial­ized guides at each muse­um that cov­ered indi­vid­ual aspects.

The first room on the left, upon enter­ing the muse­um, was an itin­er­at­ing gallery with a small pho­tog­ra­phy exhib­it ded­i­cat­ed to famous jazz musi­cians that have per­formed through­out the years in the town’s dif­fer­ent cul­tur­al events.

Leav­ing the first gallery there’s a small gift shop with mem­o­ra­bil­ia of many of the fig­ures exalt­ed through­out the museum.

From there we caught an ele­va­tor to meet with “the man” him­self: Felipe Bir­riel Fer­nan­dez, “el gigante de Car­oli­na” (the Car­oli­na Giant) who stood 7’ 11” tall. Bir­riel was born in Car­oli­na on August 16, 1916, to Pedro Bir­riel and Dion­isia Fer­nán­dez. He was the old­est of six chil­dren. In spite of the height that Felipe final­ly reached, he was not a “nor­mal” giant, like the ones we see today in the NBA.

At the age of 16 his par­ents noticed that Felipe was grow­ing abnor­mal­ly fast. He was also weak and suf­fer­ing from dizzy spells. So off he went to the doc­tor. He was diag­nosed with a rare con­di­tion affect­ing his pitu­itary gland that had devel­oped into a tumor. The doc­tor told the Bir­riels that there wasn’t a cure for the con­di­tion, but it could be treat­ed with radi­a­tion in the Unit­ed States.

Instead of rush­ing Bir­riel to be treat­ed on the main­land the gov­ern­ment ordered the machine to treat him local­ly. How­ev­er, the order was placed in 1932 and it wasn’t until 1941 (nine years lat­er) that he final­ly received treatment.

Orlan­do Mer­gal stand­ing next to the Felipe Bir­riel Fer­nán­dez ani­ma­tron­ic fig­ure (click on image to see it larger)

At 7’ 11″ tall Bir­riel was not only the tallest man in Puer­to Rico but also among the tallest in world history.

I actu­al­ly met the man back in the lat­te 70’s when I was sell­ing insur­ance near his home in the Bar­razas ward of Car­oli­na. At 6’ 0″ I felt like a midget next to him.

Bir­riel only got to sec­ond grade in ele­men­tary school. That was typ­i­cal in his time for reg­u­lar chil­dren com­ing from poor fam­i­lies. Now imag­ine being abnor­mal­ly tall and actu­al­ly suf­fer­ing from a seri­ous med­ical condition.

Yet Bir­riel wasn’t bit­ter or nasty. Instead he was a hum­ble, friend­ly and out­go­ing per­son who’s giv­ing nature made him a sym­bol for Car­oli­na then and now. “Car­o­li­nences” aren’t giants because they’re tall, they’re giants because of their tal­ent and determination.

Back to the muse­um. When you enter the Felipe Bir­riel Fer­nán­dez gallery you’re met by an ani­ma­tron­ic fig­ure of the man that invites you in and tells you a lit­tle bit about the muse­um. You can also take your pic­ture next to him. And believe me, you’ll feel small no mat­ter how tall you are.

Julia de Bur­gos ani­ma­tron­ic fig­ure (click on image to see it larger)

Next we vis­it­ed the Julia de Bur­gos exhib­it. Julia Con­stan­cia Bur­gos Gar­cía was born in the town of Car­oli­na on Feb­ru­ary 17, 1914. She was one of Puer­to Rico’s most accom­plished poets.

But she was so much more. She was tru­ly a woman ahead of her time Through­out her life she defend­ed inde­pen­dence for the Island, in a time when women were expect­ed to be home­mak­ers, and served as Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Daugh­ters of Free­dom, the wom­en’s branch of the Puer­to Rican Nation­al­ist Party.

She was also an advo­cate for women’s rights and African/Afro-Caribbean writers.

In 1935, while work­ing as a teacher in the town of Naran­ji­to, a small town about 27 miles south­west of Car­oli­na, she wrote her most famous poem titled “Río Grande De Loíza”, which is Puer­to Rico’s largest riv­er and divides the town of Car­oli­na from the neigh­bor­ing town of Loíza.

Maybe she was home­sick. Who knows? The thing is that it was also her most beau­ti­ful work. So much so that the ani­ma­tron­ic fig­ure at the “Museo De Los Gigantes” actu­al­ly recites the entire piece.

Cecil­ia Orta (click on image to see it larger)

Next was Cecil­ia Orta. Orta was born on Octo­ber 21, 1923. She was the daugh­ter of Ray­mun­do Orta, a brick­lay­er, and Cecil­ia Allende, a house­maid and seam­stress. She was the fifth of eight siblings.

Orta’s father didn’t want her to be a painter so she end­ed up train­ing in Home Eco­nom­ics at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Puer­to Rico. Upon her grad­u­a­tion, she was hired by the Puer­to Rico Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion in 1949 to offer art class­es. In 1953 she obtained a schol­ar­ship to study plas­tic arts at the Nation­al Autonomous Uni­ver­si­ty of Mex­i­co, where she stud­ied with the great mas­ters of mural­ism, among them Diego Rivera, hus­band of the also painter Fri­da Kahlo.

Upon return­ing to Puer­to Rico in 1955, Orta found­ed the Acad­e­my of Plas­tic Arts of the Future Painters of Puer­to Rico. With this rolling school she vis­it­ed sev­er­al towns and schools where she was invit­ed to bring the knowl­edge of art to all the chil­dren for free. One of her favorite phras­es was: “Art is the best weapon against crime.” Because of her intense love for the plas­tic arts, Cecil­ia Orta Allende pro­claimed her­self “The Peo­ple’s Painter”.

The gallery con­tains a large col­lec­tion of orig­i­nal pieces as well as infor­ma­tion about her illus­tri­ous life.

Rober­to Clemente Walk­er (click on image to see it larger)

The next gallery was ded­i­cat­ed to Rober­to Clemente Walk­er. Clemente was born on August 18, 1934. He was a Major League Base­ball Right Field­er who played 18 sea­sons with the Pitts­burg Pirates.

On Decem­ber 31, 1972 Clemente met his mak­er while deliv­er­ing relief sup­plies to the vic­tims of a major earth­quake in Man­u­agua, Nicaragua. One year lat­er, in 1973, he was posthu­mous­ly induct­ed into the Nation­al Base­ball Hall of Fame, becom­ing both the first Caribbean and the first Latin-Amer­i­can play­er to be ele­vat­ed to that pres­ti­gious level.

Clemente was select­ed an all-star for 13 con­sec­u­tive sea­sons. He was also the Nation­al League’s Most Valu­able Play­er (MVP) in 1966, bat­ting leader in 1961, 1964, 1965 and 1967 and Gold­en Glove win­ner for 12 con­sec­u­tive sea­sons from 1961 to 1972. His bat­ting aver­age nev­er went below .300 dur­ing 13 con­sec­u­tive sea­sons. He also bat­ted his hit num­ber 3,000 just three months pri­or to his untime­ly death.

But Clemente wasn’t just about base­ball. He was also a human­i­tar­i­an. So much so that he met his death while help­ing our Nicaraguan broth­ers dur­ing one of their dark­est moments. The plane he board­ed was basi­cal­ly a piece of junk. But Clemente did it any­way because of the press­ing need of our Nicaraguan broth­ers. He also deliv­ered food and sports equip­ment dur­ing the off sea­son both in Puer­to Rico and in neigh­bor­ing Latin Amer­i­can countries.

The fol­low­ing sea­son, the Pirates retired his uni­form num­ber 21, and MLB (Major League Base­ball) renamed its annu­al Com­mis­sion­er’s Award in his hon­or. Now known as the Rober­to Clemente Award, it is giv­en to the play­er who “best exem­pli­fies the game of base­ball, sports­man­ship, com­mu­ni­ty involve­ment and the indi­vid­u­al’s con­tri­bu­tion to his team.”

And speak­ing of num­ber 21, did you know that Clemente chose the num­ber 21 because his full name “Rober­to Clemente Walk­er” had that many let­ters? Guess what? I didn’t know that either.

And here’s anoth­er piece of triv­ia for you. As you leave the “Galería De Los Gigantes” (after you’re fin­ished explor­ing the whole thing, of course) there’s a catholic church to your left. It’s the San Fer­nan­do Church (18.381085, ‑65.956427). Well, that’s where Rober­to Clemente Walk­er mar­ried his wife Vera Zabala on Novem­ber 14, 1964. Ask your muse­um guide for more great Clemente trivia.

If you want to go back in base­ball his­to­ry, and stand before true great­ness, this is one exhib­it that you absolute­ly need to see!

Jesús María San­romá (click on image to see it larger)

Across the way from Rober­to Clemente Walk­er is the Jesús María San­romá gallery. San­romá was a child prodi­gy pianist born in the town of Car­oli­na on Novem­ber 7, 1902 to José María San­romá and María Tor­ra de la Riba. While he was just a child, Jesús María used to play on his father’s piano while the for­mer was work­ing. One day his father came back from work and caught the young Jesús María playing.

Real­iz­ing that his son had tal­ent, José enrolled him in piano lessons in the neigh­bor­ing town of Fajar­do, about 28 miles south­east of Car­oli­na. Twen­ty eight miles sounds close by today’s stan­dards, but back in the 1900’s it was quite a trip.

In 1913, at the age of 11, Jesús María made his piano debut at the Fajar­do Munic­i­pal The­ater. San­romá worked with var­i­ous com­posers through­out his career, like Igor Stravin­sky and Sergei Prokofiev, but it was the future con­duc­tor of the Boston Pops Orches­tra, Arthur Fiedler, with whom he devel­oped an artis­tic rela­tion­ship that last­ed for years.

Jesús María San­romá is con­sid­ered one of the five most accom­plished and impor­tant pianists of the 20th century.

Dur­ing his lat­er years he cofound­ed the Puer­to Rico Con­ser­va­to­ry of Music with his friend and world renown cel­list Pablo Casals.

José Aponte de la Torre

José Aponte de La Torre was born in Cayey, Puer­to Rico on Decem­ber 5, 1941. He is the only “giant” at the “Galería de los Gigantes” that wasn’t born in Car­oli­na. He was also the may­or of the town from 1984 until his death on May 5, 2007.

While not being actu­al­ly born in Car­oli­na, Aponte was “bap­tized” as “el gigante may­or” (the great­est giant) by the towns­peo­ple because of the love and respect that he earned among them.

Dur­ing his tenure the town expe­ri­enced con­tin­ued growth and has con­tin­ued to do so dur­ing his son’s tenure to date, May­or José Car­los Aponte Dalmau.

José Aponte was an indus­tri­al arts teacher by trade, a devot­ed wood­work­er and an hon­est politi­cian, two words that we sel­dom­ly hear togeth­er in mod­ern times.

As an adop­tive “car­o­li­nence” for 35 years, I can attest to the progress that Aponte de la Torre brought to Car­oli­na. And so far (it has been 15 years since his death) his son seems to have inher­it­ed the bet­ter traits of his father.

Jesús T. Piñero (click on image to see it larger)

Jesús Toribio Piñero Jiménez was born in Car­oli­na on April 6, 1897 to Emilio Piñero and Jose­fa (Pepi­ta) Jiménez Sicardó. His school years took place in the town of Car­oli­na and his col­lege years at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Puer­to Rico, in the neigh­bor­ing town of Río Piedras. And here’s a piece of triv­ia for you. Río Piedras was actu­al­ly a sep­a­rate town when Jesús T. Piñero went to college.

Lat­er on he stud­ied engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pennsylvania.

Piñero was always drawn towards tech­nol­o­gy. He was a ham radio afi­ciona­do, as well as a pho­tog­ra­phy and fil­mog­ra­phy enthu­si­ast. In fact, he actu­al­ly built Puer­to Rico’s first ham radio sta­tion at home and found­ed the “Por­to Rico Radio Club” back in 1922.

But what real­ly sealed his fate as a “gigante” was the fact that he was the first Puer­to Rican to be appoint­ed gov­er­nor of the Island in 1946, after the U.S. invad­ed the Island back in 1898. Before Piñero all the gov­er­nors under Unit­ed States rule had been mainlanders.

He was one of the found­ing mem­bers of the Pop­u­lar Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty with his friend Luis Muñoz Marin, who in 1948 would become the first Puer­to Rican-born gov­er­nor to be elect­ed by the peo­ple of Puer­to Rico under the insignia of the Pop­u­lar Demo­c­ra­t­ic Party.

Rober­to Alber­ty El Boquio

And final­ly we arrived at the Rober­to Alber­ty El Boquio gallery. Alber­ty was anoth­er child prodi­gy born in Car­oli­na on Jan­u­ary 24, 1930. From an ear­ly age he impressed peo­ple with his vivid imag­i­na­tion. His work com­bines paint­ing, poet­ry, pho­tog­ra­phy and recy­cled objects from every­day life.

The “Galería de los Gigantes” is one of those places that holds lots and lots of infor­ma­tion in a well designed and friend­ly lay­out. You can be all day learn­ing about Carolina’s “gigantes”, but a more prac­ti­cal approach would be to com­bine it with the Muse­um of Tech­nol­o­gy and Art (Museo de Tec­nología y Arte), across the street, and the Casa Escuté to the front right of the build­ing. That’s what my wife and I did and we had a great time.

Oh, and don’t for­get to stop by the gift shop for some excel­lent mem­o­ra­bil­ia. And if you’re not a dia­bet­ic like me, they also have an excel­lent cof­fee shop at the Muse­um of Tech­nol­o­gy and Art.

The muse­um has excel­lent guides that con­duct tours both in Span­ish and Eng­lish. For more infor­ma­tion call the Car­oli­na Depart­ment of Tourism and Cul­ture at 787–757-2626, ext 3903 and 3946.

Final­ly, If you liked this page, and you plan to vis­it Puer­to Rico —and the town of Car­oli­na— in the near future, you’ll find ample infor­ma­tion on this web­site. You can also book flights, hotels & car rentals at great prices through the wid­gets on the right hand column.

And yes, they are affil­i­ate links. That means that I make a small com­mis­sion, while you pay exact­ly the same that you’d pay any­where else. That way you get to return the favor with­out spend­ing an extra dime.

Enjoy Puer­to Rico,

©2022,Orlando Mer­gal, MA
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Bilin­gual Con­tent Cre­ator, Blog­ger, Pod­cast­er,
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