Museo de la Música Puertorriqueña

The building started as a downtown residence for the Serrallés family — the rum dynasty behind Don Q — before the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña acquired it and opened the Museo de la Música Puertorriqueña here in 1996. Each room is dedicated to a different tradition: danza, the music of 19th-century Puerto Rican high society; and the more African-rooted bomba and plena. The instruments on display — güiros, requintos, bordonuas — trace the Taíno, Spanish, and African threads that braided into something that belongs entirely to this island.