The first Cubans who came to Westchester County in the 1950s were single men. They tended to keep to themselves. By 1977, however, there were about 3,000 Cubans living in the Tarrytowns along with a few Dominicans, Venezuelans, and lots of Puerto Ricans. Combined there were enough Spanish-speaking immigrants to support two cocktail lounges on Cortland Street, La Embajada and La Teresa, and a Venezuelan Bar and Disco called La Arriba at 11 Beekman Avenue. The Latin cocktail lounges on Cortland Street were a stone’s throw from three African American bar and grills, De Carlo’s, the Upper-Class Men, and the Wonderful Bar. Cubans also founded their own social club in uptown North Tarrytown on Beekman Avenue. As the nature of these institutions makes clear, Latino immigrants and African Americans remained within their own urban borderlands in the Tarrytowns which included ethnic bars and restaurants.
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