Eusko Etxea (formerly Centro Vasco)

People of Basque decent have gathered at Eusko Etxea for almost 90 years to celebrate and preserve their cultural traditions. Since the mid-1970s, Eusko Etxea has been housed in a former mason’s lodge on Eckford Street in Greenpoint Brooklyn, a neighborhood where the predominant ethnic group is Polish. When the center was founded in 1913, it was housed in various buildings on the Lower East Side under the name Centro Vasco. The cultural center changed its name to Basque (Eusko Etxea) in the 1980s to better suit its mission to preserve Basque culture and language.

Eusko Etxea seeks to preserve Basque culture in the lives of immigrants and their descendants. It offers Basque language classes, has its own traditional Basque dance troop, serves pintxos (or tapas) on special occasions at the bar, and was long a destination for homesick jai alai players playing at courts in Connecticut. Though the number of Basques who have immigrated to the US has diminished in the past 40 years, the increased international profile of Basque culture and food have helped attract non-Basques to the club as well.