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The Teatro Tapia is likely to oldest free-standing drama stage building still in use in the United States. Facing east, across from Plaza de Colon (Columbus), on Fortaleza street, and built about 1832. After some years of neglect, the theater was restored in the last decades and is now used to provide intimate drama and other cultural events. The interior audience hall is remarkable for the period-copies of wood chairs. A block south lies a brick-shaped original casa de carreteros; house of road-maintainers. To the North-east lie a string of cultural institutions: the restored Casino de Puerto Rico, the YMCA, the Carnegie library, the Ateneo de Puerto Rico, and Moorish-inspired Casa de Espana. In the North seaward cliff, sprawls the historic and labyrinthine fort of San Cristobal. The original landward gate of old San Juan lay just east of this site on Calle Fortaleza. It is named after the poet and dramatist Alejandro Tapia y Rivera (1826-1882).
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