In the Heights, page 30
Already the intersection doesn’t look how it did on that day in July. Already Felipe and Doreen are gone. But they were there that afternoon, adding their voices to the song. Lin and Quiara weave a vital message through In the Heights. In “96,000” it arrives with hope, in “Alabanza” with sorrow, in “Carnaval del Barrio” with pride and defiance, and in “Finale,” supremely, with gratitude and joy. The message is: True community is possible, and it’s precious, which means it’s worth saving—and this is how it sounds.
Home is the people who sing with you.
RECORDED BOLERO SINGER: 1No te vayas…
Si me dejas…
Si te alejas de mi…
Seguirás en mis recuerdos para siempre…
Para siempre…para siempre…
Para siempre…
(“Para siempre” skip continues under Usnavi’s rap)
(USNAVI has entered and sees the boarded-up businesses: the salon and Rosario’s car service. He sits on his stoop.) 2
USNAVI: Lights out on Washington Heights, and now the crack of dawn.
The blackout goes on and on and on…
Sonny’s out back, sortin’ the trash
As I think about the past, with a sack full of cash.
Abuela really wanted me up on a beach
With margaritas in my reach, and
Soon that’s how it’s gonna be…
Imagine me, leaving today
On a seven-forty-seven boardin’ JFK…
CARLA: The hydrants are open
Cool breezes blow.
CARLA, DANIELA: The hydrants are open
Cool breezes blow. 3
DANIELA, CARLA:
The hydrants are open
Cool breezes blow.
The hydrants are open
Cool breezes blow.
The hydrants are open
Cool breezes blow.
KEVIN:
Good morning.
Good morning.
Good morning.
PIRAGUA GUY:
Piragua, piragua
New block of ice, piragua
So sweet and nice, piragua
Piragua, piragua 4
Piragua, piragua
New block of ice, piragua
So sweet and nice, piragua
Piragua, piragua
Piragua, piragua
New block of ice, piragua
So sweet and nice, piragua
Piragua, piragua
CAMILA:
Siempre…
Seguirás en mis recuerdos para siempre…
Siempre…
Seguirás en mis recuerdos para siempre…
VANESSA:
I’ll be downtown…
It won’t be long now…
(USNAVI is out on the sidewalk.)
USNAVI: There’s a breeze off the Hudson 5
And just when
You think you’re sick of living here the memory floods in.
The morning light off the fire escapes,
The nights in Bennett Park blasting Big Pun tapes.
I’mma miss this place, to tell you the truth
Kevin dispensin’ wisdom from his dispatch booth
And at dawn, Vanessa at the salon, we gotta move on,
But who’s gonna notice we’re gone?
When our job’s done, as the evening winds
Down to a crawl, son, can I ease my mind
When we’re all done, when we’ve resigned
In the long run, what do we leave behind?
Most of all, I’ll miss Abuela’s whispers,
Doin’ the Lotto Pick Six every Christmas.
In five years, when this whole city’s rich folks and hipsters,
Who’s gonna miss this raggedy little business? 6
(USNAVI arrives at the bodega. SONNY and GRAFFITI PETE are there.)
GRAFFITI PETE: What it do? Great sunlight this morning.
SONNY: Yo cuz! We fixed the grate!
USNAVI (To SONNY): What did I tell you about this punk?
SONNY: You have to commission an artist while his rate is still good.
GRAFFITI PETE: The first work in my new series.
(GRAFFITI PETE rolls down the gate. There is a huge graffiti mural of ABUELA CLAUDIA that says “Paciencia y fe.” Silence.) 7
GRAFFITI PETE: He hates it.
SONNY: Shh. He’s forming an artistic opinion.
(The beat crescendos back in.)
USNAVI: You did this last night?
GRAFFITI PETE: Yeah.
USNAVI: There goes my flight.
SONNY: What?
USNAVI: Graffiti Pete, you’re gonna need some new cans!
Here’s some money, finish up, there’s been a slight change of plans!
GRAFFITI PETE: Nice!
USNAVI: Listen up guys, you got a job, I’m not playin’.
You gotta go now, tell the whole block I’m stayin’!
Y’all go ahead, tell everyone we know!
(GRAFFITI PETE runs off.)
Sonny…
(USNAVI starts to say something but gets choked up, motions to his own heart.)
All right, go!
(SONNY runs off.)
Yeah, I’m a streetlight!
Chillin’ in the heat!
I illuminate the stories of the people in the street.
Some have happy endings,
Some are bittersweet,
But I know them all and that’s what makes my life complete.
(NINA enters, sees the mural.)
NINA: We’re home—
USNAVI: And if not me, who keeps our legacies? 8
Who’s gonna keep the coffee sweet with secret recipes?
Abuela, rest in peace, you live in my memories
But Sonny’s gotta eat, and this corner is my destiny.
SONNY, NINA, CARLA, DANIELA: We’re home—
USNAVI: Brings out the best in me, we pass a test and we
Keep pressin’ and yes indeed, you know I’ll never leave.
If you close your eyes that hydrant is a beach,
That siren is a breeze, that fire escape’s a leaf on a palm tree.
CARLA, DANIELA, NINA, CAMILA, VANESSA, SONNY, PIRAGUA GUY, KEVIN: We’re home—
USNAVI: Abuela, I’m sorry,
But I ain’t goin’ back because I’m telling your story!
And I can say goodbye to you smilin’, I found my island,
I’ve been on it this whole time. 9
I’m home!
GROUP 1
(NINA, CAMILA, DANIELA,
CARLA, SONNY, BENNY,
KEVIN, PIRAGUA GUY, MAN):
We’re home—
GROUP 2
(VANESSA, WOMEN, MEN
GRAFFITI PETE):
The hydrants are open
Cool breezes blow—
USNAVI: It's a wonderful life that I’ve known—
Merry Christmas, you ol’ building and loan!
I’m home! 10
GROUP 1:
We’re home—
GROUP 2:
The hydrants are open
Cool breezes blow—
USNAVI: Abuela, that ain’t a stoop, that’s your throne—
Long after ya birds have all flown,
USNAVI:
I’m home!
Where the coffee’s
nonstop
And I drop this hip-hop
in my
GROUP 1:
We’re home!
Mom-and-pop shop,
I’m home!
Where people come
People go
Let me show all of
these
People what I know,
there’s
No place like home!
And let me set the
record
Straight!
I’m steppin’ to Vanessa,
I’m gettin’ a second
date!
I’m home!
COMPANY:
We’re home! 11
We’re home!
We’re home!
Where it’s a hundred
in the
Shade,
But with patience
and faith,
We remain unafraid,
I’m home!
You hear that music
in the
Air?
Take the train to the
top of
The world, and I’m
there,
I’m home!
Home!
Home!
Home!
Home!
12
NINA, USNAVI: I’ll be home all summer 13
I’ll be home all summer
If you’re gonna be around
You can find me uptown.
COMPANY: Uptown uptown uptown up!
NINA, USNAVI: I’ll be home all summer
I’ll be home all summer
If you’re gonna be around
You can find me uptown.
COMPANY: Uptown uptown uptown up!
NINA: I’m, I’m missing the view from
My old hometown, so I
Climb, way up to the Heights
And I won’t come down now. 14
NINA, USNAVI: You, you always remind me
Where I belong, come
Through, yeah, find me and
Play me my favorite song, so
USNAVI: Saca los dominós
Let all the homies know
Tell everyone we know
Yo, she’s coming home.
Yeah, sube el volumen
Until the bass is boomin’ 15
Until the place is movin’
Until the faces in the room are me and you
What it do when we’re—
NINA, USNAVI: I’ll be home all summer
I’ll be home all summer
If you’re gonna be around
You can find me uptown.
COMPANY: Uptown uptown uptown up!
NINA, USNAVI: I’ll be home all summer
I’ll be home all summer
If you’re gonna be around
You can find me uptown.
COMPANY: Uptown uptown uptown up!
USNAVI: I, I know the view from the corner store so
I, I wake up longing for so much more, then 16
NINA, USNAVI: You, you’re back in town, you hold me down,
You are my wandering star
Come through, I’m not alone, thank you for showin’ me home is
Where you are, so
USNAVI: Saca los dominós
Let all the homies know
Tell everyone we know
Yo, she’s coming home.
Yeah, sube el volumen
Until the bass is boomin’
Until the place is movin’
Until the faces in the room are me and you.
What it do when we’re—
NINA, USNAVI: Home all summer
I’ll be home all summer
If you’re gonna be around
You can find me uptown.
MARC: 17Hey yeah
You can always come back home
Hey yeah
You can always come back home
Whoa, welcome home.
USNAVI: When the power goes down
When the rent goes up
We’ll survive uptown
We will raise our cup.
NINA, USNAVI: When the sun goes down
Turn the music up
I will hold you down
I will lift you up.
MARC: 18Hey yeah
You can always come back home
Hey yeah
You can always come back home
Whoa, welcome home!
(Chorus and out.)
Skip Notes
1. The bolero singer on Broadway is the bolero singer you hear in the film, the first person who auditioned for In the Heights in the basement of the Drama Book Shop: the great Doreen Montalvo. She sang La Lupe’s “Qué Te Pedi” and embedded herself in my heart in an instant. Her voice had that tear in it—that lágrima. Inimitable and hers. She played Benny’s mom, Alma, that first year. We cut the role. So she played Camila, then Daniela, then Abuela Claudia, and by 2007 she was so invaluable to us that she covered all those roles both off and on Broadway, in addition to her ensemble role, whom Quiara nicknamed Cuca. The name stuck, and became the name of the charater Dascha Polanco would create for the film.
In 2010, she happily became Doreen Montalvo Mann—I DJed the wedding. She and Michael held it around the corner from the theater, and every incarnation of our cast was there. Everyone who met Doreen became her new friend. She held friends so dearly and easily. You’d go to her cabaret show and see people you hadn’t seen in years. But Doreen had stayed in touch. Everyone stayed in touch with Doreen.
She passed away suddenly in the fall of 2020, the first of our alumni family to do so. I am so grateful that her voice lives on in the film, singing her moments in “Breathe” and “Siempre.” To quote Camila, “The scratch in the record is my favorite part.”
2. And here are the movie lyrics, updated to reflect Sonny’s new journey:
Lights up on Washington Heights, and now the crack of dawn.
I pack, as life goes on and on and on…
Time to go, but I’m doing the math
On this cash money to have Sonny stay on his path.
3. The finale of this show came to me in exactly the same way as the finale of Hamilton: waking up at four a.m. on the final morning of a workshop full of actors who are waiting for the last song, which they are to perform for an audience that day. (Forever doing my homework on the bus to school. It doesn’t go away, kids.) The impulse began with wanting to hear a solo from Janet Dacal, who at this point in 2004 had played Nina, Vanessa, and everyone in between throughout our basement workshops and readings before finally landing on Carla when that character was created. She was foundational in the development of our show, and I know her voice as well as Chris Jackson’s or my own. It’s also so lovely for Carla to anchor this canon in such a beautiful, simple observation: The hydrants are open, cool breezes blow. Anyway, I cried a lot writing this, lol.
4. The power of the right reprise at the right time really unfolds during this canon.
5. I’m writing this note on August 29, 2020, twenty years after my first draft. I’m staring out the window on the same view of the George Washington Bridge that Anna Louizos hung on our Broadway set. In the other room, my wife, Vanessa, is with our two boys. We live on the same block where she grew up, just a few blocks south of where I grew up, in this neighborhood. So believe me when I tell you that there has been a catch in my throat every time I’ve sung this lyric, and maybe there always will be.
6. I hope New York City, and Washington Heights in particular, never loses the economic and cultural diversity that makes Usnavi’s bodega possible. On some blocks, it’s already happened; other blocks are unchanged from when I was a child. Surely the pandemic happening at the time of this writing changes everything. I do know this: The East Village of Jonathan Larson’s Rent is all but gone; the Upper West Side of West Side Story was razed to create Lincoln Center. But they live on in their shows.
7. This is an interesting place where the show and movie diverge. In the stage show, the mural reveals that everything Usnavi assumed about Graffiti Pete is wrong; he’s a great artist and he’s used his gifts to cement Abuela’s legacy in the neighborhood. It shifts the tectonic plates in Usnavi’s heart and lets him see his own corner anew. The same is true in the film, but Quiara multiplies it by adding Vanessa’s artistic vision and light. Usnavi is not just seeing his past conjured in Graffiti Pete’s mural: In Vanessa’s eyes, he’s seeing his future.
8. Legacy popping up in my tunes again…
9. I find it amazing that Quiara took these lyrics and elevated them to the narrative structure of the film. HE’S BEEN ON IT THIS WHOLE TIME!
