Ballajá - San Juan, Puerto Rico
Posted by: 
neoc1
N 18° 28.083 W 066° 07.249
19Q E 804086 N 2044391
A sculpture commemorating the rescue of Ballajá by the Puerto Rican people is located in the Plaza del Cuartel de Ballajá.
Waymark Code: WMGH3F
Location: Puerto Rico
Date Posted: 03/06/2013
Views: 18
An allegorical sculpture has three larger-than-life bronze figures intertwined in a struggle. The figures depicting the rescue of the district of Ballajá by the Puerto Rican people. The figures are interacting on top of a cloak which represents "the forgotten". A woman represents the district. The old man is presented as a predator bird of prey who has neglected the district. Between them is a young man who is rescuing the woman thus "symbolizes the new spirit of a generation of Puerto Ricans struggling to rescue his past from oblivion and thus affirm the value of their identity".
The sculpture was created by Victor Ochoa and installed in 1992 at the Plaza del Cuartel de Ballajá. The Ballajá is the old barracks area in Old San Juan where Spanish troops were quartered.
The base of the statue has an explanatory plaque which is inscribed in Spanish:
Conjunto Escultorico
Alegorico al rescate del barrio
de Ballajá por el pueblo
Puertorriqueño
La mujer representa el barrio. El manto que la curre
es el "olvido."
El hombre viejo, dotado de las garras y del craneo del
Ave de Rapiña, que intenta ocultarla, representa todas
aquellas fuerzas que de algun modo han mantenido
cubierta, tras el olvido, a Ballajá.
El hombre joven simboliza el nuevo espiritu de una
generacion de Puertorriqueños afanados en rescatar
su pasado del olvido y asi afirmar el valor de su
identidad.
[Compilation of various online translations:]
Sculptural Ensemble
Allegorical to the rescue of the district of Ballajá by the Puerto Rican people.
The woman represents the district The cloak that the curre(?) is the 'forgotten."
The old man, equipped with claws and skull of a bird of prey, trying to hide it, represents all those forces that somehow have kept cover, after the forgotten Ballajá.
Young man symbolizes the new spirit of a generation of Puerto Ricans struggling to rescue his past from oblivion and thus affirm the value of their identity.