In the summer of 1929, the Spaniard Angel del R\u00edo (1891\u20131953) and his wife, Puerto Rican Amelia Agostini del R\u00edo (1896\u20131996), hosted the famous Spanish poet and dramaturg Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca (1898\u20131936) at their rented farmhouse in the hamlet of Bushnellsville, in the town of Shandaken, New York. At the time, the hamlet was mostly farmland with a cider mill, ice houses, several general stores, and a post office.<\/p>\n
Before and after Lorca\u2019s visit, the del R\u00edos regularly summered in the Catskills region while on break from their academic duties in New York City. Angel del R\u00edo was an eminent scholar of Spanish literature who served as director of Columbia University\u2019s Hispanic Institute and its prestigious journal Revista Hispanica Moderna<\/i>. He is credited with helping develop the discipline of Hispanic studies in the United States. Amelia Agostini del R\u00edo was the prolific author of more than 45 books of poetry, essays, plays, short stories and art history. Among them was one of the first academic monographs about the Puerto Rican experience in the United States. She was a professor and longtime chair of the Spanish Department at Barnard College.<\/p>\n
Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca stayed with the del R\u00edos in their Bushnellsville farmhouse for three weeks, from August 29 to September 18, 1929. He had befriended the couple\u2014who would serve as his hosts and guides during his time in New York\u2014a few years before in Madrid. According to Lorca\u2019s biographer Leslie Stanton, Lorca thoroughly enjoyed the tranquility of Bushnellsville, taking long walks and studying English, ostensibly the main reason for his journey to the United States.<\/p>\n
Although the scenery could not be said to have enhanced Lorca\u2019s proficiency in the English language, which he never mastered, it did ignite his poetic imagination. His time in Bushellsville led to the creation of some of the poems that would later appear in his iconic, posthumous collection, Poeta en Nueva York<\/i> (1942). Lorca\u2019s bond with the farmhouse caretaker\u2019s children who frequently followed him on his bucolic walks inspired the poems \u201cEl ni\u00f1o Stanton\u201d and \u201cNi\u00f1a ahogada en el pozo.\u201d These works are contemplative explorations of childhood innocence. Melancholy permeates other poems written in the Catskills, such as \u201cNocturno del hueco,\u201d \u201cRuina,\u201d and \u201cPaisaje con dos tumbas y un perro asirio,\u201d which meditate on the passage of time, loss, and death.<\/p>","sponsor":"","subtitle":"Literature & The Arts","accessinfo":"The exact location of the del R\u00edos' farmhouse in Bushnellsville is currently unnown.","lede":"In 1929, the Spanish poet Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca spent nearly a month in Bushnellsville. Several poems later immortalized in his collection Poeta en Nueva York were inspired by the area's rural tranquility.","website":"","related_resources":["Agostini del Ri\u0301o, Amelia. Del Solar Hispa\u0301nico: Lecturas de literatura espan\u0303ola e hispanoamericana<\/em>. The Dryden Press (New York, NY), 1946.","Agostini del Ri\u0301o, Amelia. Puertorrique\u00f1os en Nueva York (Cuentos)<\/em>. Coleccion Montana (New York, NY), 1970.","Eisenberg, Daniel. \u201cA Chronology of Lorca's Visit to New York,\u201d Kentucky Romance Quarterly<\/em>, No. 24 (1977): 233-50.","Fern\u00e1ndez, James D. \u201cThe Discovery of Spain in New York, circa 1930,\u201d in Edward J. Sullivan, ed., Nueva York: 1613 \u2013 1945<\/em>, Scala\/New York Historical Society (New York, NY), 2010.","Garc\u00eda Lorca, Federico. Poeta en Nueva York<\/em>, Editorial Seneca, (Mexico City), 1940.","Garc\u00eda Lorca, Federico. Poet in New York<\/em>. Trans. Greg Simon and Steven F. White, ed. and intro. Christopher Maurer, Farrar, Straus, Giroux (New York), 1988.","Maurer, Christopher and Andrew A. Anderson, eds. Federico Garci\u0301a Lorca en Nueva York y La Habana: Cartas y Recuerdos<\/em>, Galaxia Gutenberg (Barcelona), 2013.","R\u00edo, \u00c1ngel del.\u00a0 <\/span>The Clash and Attraction of Two Cultures: The Hispanic and Anglo-Saxon Worlds in America<\/span><\/i>. Louisiana State University Press (Baton Rouge, LA), 1965.<\/span>","R\u00edo, \u00c1ngel del. \"Fotos De Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca en Norteam\u00e9rica (1929).\" <\/span>Papeles De Son Armadans<\/span><\/i>, Vol. 42 (1966): 92-106. <\/span>","Stainton, Leslie. Lorca: A Dream of Life<\/em>, Farrar, Straus, Giroux (New York, NY), 1999."],"factoids":["Fittingly, in 2019, ninety years after Lorca\u2019s visit to Bushnellsville, a cluster of simple yet thoughtfully redesigned rental lodges opened in the area under the name The Lorca<\/a>, in homage to the poet\u2019s visit to the area."],"files":{"https:\/\/discover.latinocatskills.com\/files\/fullsize\/6602ccb747ef8a24c9362ae319a74881.jpg":{"id":22,"mime-type":"image\/png","title":"Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca with the del R\u00edo Family in Bushnellsville","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discover.latinocatskills.com\/files\/square_thumbnails\/6602ccb747ef8a24c9362ae319a74881.jpg","description":"Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca (standing, left) poses with the del R\u00edo family in front of their rented farmhouse in Bushnellsville."},"https:\/\/discover.latinocatskills.com\/files\/fullsize\/d20d982c081d1b371f5631838123afeb.jpg":{"id":25,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Lorca and Amelia Agostini del R\u00edo","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discover.latinocatskills.com\/files\/square_thumbnails\/d20d982c081d1b371f5631838123afeb.jpg","description":"Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca, seated, next to a standing Amelia Agostini del R\u00edo, who is holding her three-month-old son, in the garden of their rented farmhouse in Bushnellsville.
\r\n"},"https:\/\/discover.latinocatskills.com\/files\/fullsize\/cfc81068cd1efa8f94e7bea485188c74.jpg":{"id":24,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Lorca Writing in Bushnellsville ","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discover.latinocatskills.com\/files\/square_thumbnails\/cfc81068cd1efa8f94e7bea485188c74.jpg","description":"A seated Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca with pen in hand on the porch of the rented Bushnellsville farmhouse.
\r\n"},"https:\/\/discover.latinocatskills.com\/files\/fullsize\/210bc06f726c7f2414f1944ca0e9ba77.jpg":{"id":23,"mime-type":"image\/jpeg","title":"Lorca and del R\u00edo ","thumbnail":"https:\/\/discover.latinocatskills.com\/files\/square_thumbnails\/210bc06f726c7f2414f1944ca0e9ba77.jpg","description":"\u00c1ngel del R\u00edo, with his arm around Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca, outside the rented farmhouse in Bushnellsville."}}}