MELROSE — When Grammy-nominated percussionist Bobby Sanabria was growing up in The Bronx during the 1960s and '70s, the city was leading the musical world in genres ranging from rock to jazz to salsa.
"You’d hear the sound of conga drums at night in the summertime," he said. "You’d be going to sleep to that."
Sanabria decided he wanted to become a musician at age 12, when Tito Puente came to the neighborhood and performed a concert on a street corner. He has since worked with artists including Dizzy Gillespie, Arturo Sandoval and Puente himself.
"Everything that I do today is based on my upbringing in the borough," he said.
Sanabria's music is now part of the soundtrack for The Bronx's third "Boogie Down Booth," which was unveiled on Tuesday at E. 161st Street and Elton Avenue and gives residents a place to sit down and listen to 16 different tracks with roots in the borough.
The first version of the project was installed in July 2014 underneath the Freeman Street subway station. The second arrived in July 2015 at 174th Street and Southern Boulevard.
The new booth features picnic-style seating, a community bulletin board, artwork by students and local artists and solar-powered speakers that stream a playlist of Bronx music curated by the Bronx Music Heritage Center, part of the Women's Housing and Economic Development Corporation.
Songs at the third installment of the booth include an excerpt from the "Night of the Living Dead" soundtrack by Sanabria and Project X, the Italian folk song "Forrni d' alia" by Alessandra Belloni, and "From Mambo to Hip Hop" by Sanabria's son, Roberto Sanabria, which the two performed at Tuesday's unveiling.
"Seeing him perform, seeing him interact with the audience, seeing him on the percussion, I always looked up to it," Roberto Sanabria said of his father.
The third booth is located across the street from WHEDco's upcoming affordable housing development and cultural center called Bronx Commons. Nancy Biberman, president and founder of WHEDco, described it as a way to help make the area a more enjoyable place.
"It’s not enough to build homes, to create neighborhoods and communities," she said. "People need nice safe places to sit, enjoyable places, places where we can hear music and relax."
The newest booth will be open for one year and designer Chat Travieso said he would be up for doing more going forward.
"There isn't really a plan for the next one," he said, "but I'm open to it."
Sanabria credited The Bronx's vibrant music scene for helping him and others get through the rough patches that the borough experienced in the 1960s and '70s.
"That’s what kept us together," he said. "The music."
