THE NEW YORK TIMES
February 25, 2007

Woodlawn Cemetery

Amid the Gravestones, a Final Love Song

By EMILY BRADY


 

In the summer of 2003, as his beloved wife was dying of brain cancer, Pedro Knight set out to find her a final resting place. His wife of 41 years, the legendary salsa singer Celia Cruz, needed a space that was accessible to the legions of fans whose lives she had touched through her music.

He chose a plot in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, where, on Myosotis Avenue, a granite mausoleum was built with four windows so fans could peer in and pay their respects to their beloved Guarachera de Cuba, whose nickname came from the guaracha songs that made her famous. The mausoleum’s neighbors were gravestones and larger monuments built in tribute to famous New Yorkers of all stripes, including seven former mayors, and musical giants like Duke Ellington and Miles Davis.

As thousands of fans from around the world made pilgrimages to Ms. Cruz’s grave after her death in July 2003, those who work at the cemetery noticed that whenever Mr. Knight visited, he shared his time with people who had come to pay respects to his wife. “The poor guy,” said Susan Olsen, the executive director of Friends of the Woodlawn Cemetery. “He never really had a chance to be alone with her.”

Earlier this month, the two were reunited.

Mr. Knight, who died in California on Feb. 3 at age 85, was entombed next to his wife on Feb. 13. His burial, on the day before Valentine’s Day, was the final chapter of a love story that had taken the couple from Fidel Castro’s Cuba to the heights of fame during a life in exile in the United States.

Her nickname, which followed her into death, is engraved on her tombstone. Mr. Knight was her “cabecita de algondón,” her little cotton head, a nod to the fact that age turned his fuzzy curls and mutton-chop sideburns milky white.

The couple met in Havana in 1950, when Ms. Cruz joined the popular Sonora Matancera orchestra, in which Mr. Knight played the trumpet. After defecting with the orchestra in 1960 in Mexico, they made their way to the United States, and they were married in 1962.

Under her husband’s guidance, Ms. Cruz went on to become a global salsa star. She was bathed in the limelight, and that was the way Mr. Knight liked it.

“He always wanted all of the attention to be on her,” said Omer Pardillo-Cid, Ms. Cruz’s former manager, on a recent visit to the tomb. “She was the flamboyant one; Pedro was always very simple.”

Today, sunlight slanting into the couple’s shared chamber is colored by a stained-glass window depicting Our Lady of Charity, the patron saint of Cuba. Three photographs of Ms. Cruz in silver frames are displayed on her tomb, along with a rosary and a small Cuban flag, given to her during the only visit she was able to make to Cuba — to the Guantánamo military base — during her decades in exile.

As yet, nothing adorns Mr. Knight’s tomb. Mr. Pardillo-Cid plans to display photos of him, too, but solo shots have proved difficult to come by. “It’s been hard finding a picture of just him,” Mr. Pardillo-Cid said. “They were always together.”