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Melilla (Santurce)

Municipality of San JuanPuerto Rico Senatorial district I geography stubsSanturce, San Juan, Puerto Rico
Melilla (sub barrio)
Melilla (sub barrio)

Melilla is one of the forty subbarrios of Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Melilla (Santurce) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Melilla (Santurce)
Calle del Parque, San Juan Santurce (Santurce)

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 18.443665 ° E -66.068 °
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Address

Parking Plaza 23

Calle del Parque
00909 San Juan, Santurce (Santurce)
Puerto Rico, United States
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Melilla (sub barrio)
Melilla (sub barrio)
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Gran Logia Espiritual Número 1
Gran Logia Espiritual Número 1

Grand Spiritual Lodge No. 1 (Spanish: Gran Logia Espiritual Número 1), also known as Casa de las Almas ('house of the souls'), is a historic building and Spiritualist meeting hall located in Santurce in the city of San Juan, Puerto Rico. It was designed by Luis F. Delgado and Juan Rivera Paris using a simple but elegant Neoclassical style. The structure was built by members of the lodge in 1928 with the intended purpose of serving as a Spiritualist meeting hall for a local Spiritualist lodge (centro espiritista) founded in 1910. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008 for its historic and architectural significance.Casa de las Almas was the main Spiritualist center in Puerto Rico that belonged to the philosophical and spiritual doctrine founded by Allan Kardec. Previous Spiritualist centers existed in the island since the 1870s, such as in the western city of Mayagüez. These centers would usually be closed down by the deeply-Catholic Spanish colonial government. The political changes that were brought by the United States and the separation between state and church in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War allowed for many of these previously outlawed movements to freely flourish beginning in 1903. By 1920 there were at least 150 Spiritualist centers in the island, and it was under this environment that the community of Casa de las Almas was established by Balbino Vázquez and his wife María Cruz Carpintero. This center mostly attracted members of the working-class community and women who were previously unable to have an active participation in the Catholic church or in the traditional social and spiritual organizations of the time. Some notable individuals who were members of this community included Rosendo Matienzo Cintrón, Vicente Geigel Polanco and Roberto H. Todd. The institution was later incorporated as a non-profit organization in 1930, and today it is possibly the largest and most renown organization of its type in Puerto Rico.

Church of San Mateo de Cangrejos of Santurce
Church of San Mateo de Cangrejos of Santurce

Church of San Mateo de Cangrejos of Santurce (La Iglesia San Mateo de Cangrejos en Santurce) was first built in 1832 as a chapel. In 1896, State Architect Pedro Cobreros, who designed other churches in Puerto Rico, reconstructed its facade and enlarged the interior.The church is different from others in Puerto Rico in that its not related to a municipality's urban center. When first built it was the parish church of Villa de Cangrejos but with the urban development of the metropolitan area, Santurce was absorbed into San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico. The building is located at the highest elevation of Santurce, which allows for a view of Santurce, now a barrio of San Juan. Its large facade has two towers with three stories in between. This feature is known as westwork; (a west-facing entrance with towers, a vestibule, and a chapel). However, in the case of this church, its main entrance faces south. Curved steps lead up to the main entrance. The church, oriented from north to south, deviates from the traditional east to west orientation. On the west side of the church is a small parish house built in the same style as the church. The buildings are separated by a fence and a garden. The interior main floor follows the basilica form with two lateral naves which are divided by means of an arcade of six bays resting on pillars. Each bay has a small rectangular window. Originally, the nave had a flat wooden roof which has been replaced by one of concrete with massive exposed beams of concrete. The square apse is roofed with a dome that rests on pendentives. The floors are made of marble and have been placed diagonally from the main axis. The church had a choir floor which no longer exists and had four portholes to illuminate the altar, which have been closed. The building is in good shape, maintaining its original character. The two main changes have been the expansion of the sacristy and the installation of an air conditioning system.