history, folklore and culture. However, Ortíz quickly redeveloped this project as the creation of a community museum that would be dedicated to Puerto Rican art and culture, and named it El Museo del Barrio. In its founding documents, Ortíz stated that "The cultural disenfranchisement I experience as a Puerto Rican has prompted me to seek a practical alternative to the orthodox museum, which fails to meet my needs for an authentic ethnic experience. To afford me and others the opportunity to establish living connections with our own culture, I founded El Museo del Barrio." He served as director of the institution from June 1969 to Spring 1971. The museum also sought to define itself as an educational institution and its original location was a public school classroom. With the increasing size of the Latino population throughout New York City, of which Puerto Ricans are still the majority, the scope of the museum has expanded, breeding conflict with some artists, scholars, and neighborhood activists anxious to preserve its original mission. In 1977, El Museo joined the Cultural Institutions Group (also known as CIGs) which helped increase and maintain its funding. Its funding was frozen in the 1980s following a period of mismanagement. However it was able to successfully rebound and grow. A Frida Kahlo exhibit in 2002 brought more attendees than normally visited the museum annually and helped to transform its perception and led to the museum's first non-Puerto Rican Director. In 2009, El Museo celebrated its fortieth anniversary with public events, and the completion of an extensive renovation, which included an exhibition space for its permanent collection, a cafe, and a redesigned 4,500-square-foot courtyard. El Museo has grown from an alternative space to an established museum in East Harlem and has broadened its focus from exclusively Puerto Rican art, to encompass Latino, Caribbean, and Latin American art and culture. Location From El Museo's origins in a public school classroom, it has called a number of different locations home. Between 1969 and 1976, it operated out of a number of different storefronts on Third and Lexington Avenues in the nexus of the community they served. In 1977, they moved to their permanent home, the neo-classical Heckscher Building (this is the building that was the Heckscher Foundation for Children and not the Heckscher Building n/k/a the Crown Building) on Fifth Avenue and became a founding member of Museum Mile when it launched