On Sunday afternoon in Williamsburg, Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez and New York State Senator Julia Salazar sat engaged in an important summit: multiple rounds of dominos atop a custom pink-painted table set up in the middle of Grand Street between Driggs and Roebling. It was a serious face-off—brows were furrowed—and after an hour or so, Velázquez, an avid dominos player, emerged victorious. "I won seven out of nine," she told Hell Gate with an impish laugh. They had been flanked by about eight tables full of players, mostly focused-looking viejos, in yellow T-shirts, all vying in a tournament for one of four, very tall red trophies. "They take it very seriously," said a pokerfaced, pierced-and-bleached young woman named Toni who was helping her grandfather keeping the official score for el Torneo de Dominó Oficial.
The revelers had all come to celebrate Maria Antonia "Toñita" Cay, on the 50th anniversary of Toñita's Caribbean Social Club, the historic home, party palace, and familial meeting point for Southside Williamsburg's Puerto Rican community that she founded and still runs today. In honor of its half-centennial, a stretch of Grand Street in front of Toñita's was transformed into a classic block party to kick off the summer, complete with live music, DJs, food tents, and a hoops-shooting set-up courtesy of the Brooklyn Nets. Lines—to enter Toñita's for its famous $3 Medalla Light or to pick up a mini-empanada and cup of chinola for free from Titi's—stretched down the block, but were quick and amiable. The crowd was diverse in age and majority Latine, but everyone was wearing their first-block-party-of-New-York-City-summer best; elders sat on beach chairs up and down the block, parade-style, while teenagers gabbed excitedly and snapped cute Instas of their friends.
Universal was the respect for Toñita—La Doña, la reina—from Los Sures and beyond. "We love her," said Richard Ramirez, the vice president of Bushwick's Classic Riders Bicycle Club, who wore a "PR" ballcap and a blue-and-white Classic Riders jersey emblazoned with a low-rider bike against the city skyline. The group rolled out en masse on pristine vintage Schwinns and other spit-shined chrome rides; Ramirez said the Classic Riders have known Toñita "for a very long time, so we came out here to give her support."
Toñita bought her building and opened her storefront space in 1974; 50 years later, it remains the last Puerto Rican social club in Brooklyn, and one of the last in New York City. The stretch of Grand where it sits, between the Brooklyn Running Company and Clem's Tavern, was once filled with them, an outgrowth of the softball clubs that began flourishing in the '50s and '60s. But, said Evelyn Cruz, the district director for Velázquez and a native of Los Sures, they always served a greater purpose beyond the baseball diamond. "Afterwards, they'd be a place to congregate, to network with your loved ones and talk about your hometown," Cruz said. "That's the essence of community space."
Cruz has known Toñita her whole life, and remembers her as a civically engaged organizer whom all the men loved, "married or not" (including Cruz's father, who used to get the "eyes here" pinch from her mother when gazing at Toñita). While Toñita may be best known for her glamorous column of rings, which she makes herself, back in the day she was famous for her catsuits. "Very, very chic," said Cruz.
"I think it's great that we have all these people out here from all walks of life that can come and give her her flowers," she added, "because these institutions are long-lost in our neighborhood. We love all the newcomers, they bring something new. But the essence that she has, that our community has fostered, is not even found in our neighborhood. We have the old-timers here that have been fighting high rents, fighting displacement. But they still have a hard spirit, they care about the neighborhood, and they came out too."
Williamsburg has become a playground for the very rich. The fact that Williamsburg (and now Bushwick) was and is a Latine neighborhood has usually been erased. The residents that haven't been pushed out due to rent hikes are organized, and the history of Puerto Ricans, and later Dominicans, creating these neighborhoods over the last century can never be whitewashed. Yet amid the influx of the new neighbors that Cruz referenced—and lucrative purchase offers—Toñita has declined to sell her building, understanding the importance of maintaining her club to prevent such erasure. While the neighborhood has become wealthier, whiter, and in some cases less community-oriented, the spirit and soul of Los Sures comes from its Puerto Rican heritage, the people who pushed through its toughest eras to make it the welcoming place it happens to be.
More recently, Toñita's reputation has preceded her. In 2013, a short documentary was made about her and the community; by 2022, Bad Bunny was visiting her to celebrate the release of his album, "Un Verano Sin Ti." She's been profiled in Latino USA, the New York Times, and Interview; even Rolling Stone photographed a cover spread there with Maluma and Madonna. Rauw Alejandro recently stopped by for some dominos.
But Toñita has been a local star for years. "The reason that I became the first Puerto Rican woman to be elected to the House of Representatives is because of the work [of] people like Toñita; they paved the way for me to become that person," said Congressmember Velázquez, who later took the stage to announce she had honored Cay on the House floor. "Toñita is the American story: a woman from Puerto Rico with not much means, who worked so hard making dresses and selling them until she saved enough money to purchase a building. Back then, that was a miracle. So the fact that we are seeing all the gentrification going on, the developers are here…she's still here. Her business became a space for the Puerto Rican community to gather, to have those meetings, political discussions, and it became a cultural institution. So I am indebted to her and the community."
As the day melted into late afternoon, Toñita's daughter, Silvia Rosado, announced that Mayor Eric Adams had decreed June 16, 2024, Maria Antonia Toñita Day, and read his proclamation in his stead. (It was Father's Day; the mayor had other matters to attend to.) Rosado wore a commemorative 50th anniversary shirt and a red-and-white manicure to match. As she spoke, sending loving glances side-stage to her mother, she began to weep. "I came all the way from Puerto Rico to celebrate my mother," Rosado said, "and I appreciate all the love that you guys give to her, the way you take care of her. I take that with me back to Puerto Rico."
Maria Toñita, in a leopard-print dress and perfectly coiffed blonde hair, was holding court under a tent, posing for photo after photo with chuffed admirers. Her welcoming smile was angelic, and for each photo, her pose was always the same—hands outstretched, so the camera could get a good look at those rings. Earlier in the day, she'd made an entrance like the head of state she is: in a black BMW SUV, rolling slowly down the street through the block party, waving from the passenger seat as her subjects called her name, cameras in hand to snap a photo of the glimpse of the queen mother. "Toñita's is iconic, it is legendary," said the Bushwick artist Danny Cortes, before he unveiled his miniature rendition of Toñita's building from beneath a Puerto Rico flag. "And it's gonna live on forever."
