The home of a music shop that served East Harlem for over five decades has been sold.
Platinum Realty Associates purchased the building that housed Casa Latina Music Shop at 151 E. 116th St. in a three-building deal for $5.4 million. The transaction closed April 8, according to the city register.
The store offered guitars, percussion instruments and Spanish-language records and CDs, with a specific focus on salsa music. Alfonso Rubio bought the building in 1969. When he died in 1978, his daughter, Christina, and her husband, Vicente Barreiro, took over the building and the shop, according to Spectrum News.
Casa Latina closed in 2022, a little more than a year before Vicente’s death at 77, according to an obituary. His daughter, Lisa Barreiro, signed the deed transfer for the seller.
The buyer is Queens-based Platinum Realty Co. David Koptiev signed the documents for the buyer. Platinum Realty declined to comment before press time.
The building housing the store was first listed in 2021 for $4 million, but that price was lowered to just under $3 million months later, before the building and two neighboring properties were delisted altogether.
Also included in the sale were 149 E. 116th St. and 1873 Lexington Ave. Both of those properties are mixed-use buildings with rental apartments bought by the Barreiros in 1984 and 1999, respectively. When the trio were first on the market in 2021, the buildings advertised they could be combined “as a package for a massive redevelopment with significant air rights.”
The ownership company associated with the Barreiros sold another building in the same area, 175 E. 116th St., for $1.9 million in 2024, according to the city register.
