Willie Estrada is a former National IT Manager/Director who worked for several Fortune 500 companies in and around the Wall St. area for 20 years. However, once upon a time, he was one of the leaders of the 1st Division Imperial Bachelors gang during his youth. During the summer of 1974, Willie and his friends hosted Hustle parties at St. Mary’s Recreation Center, his gang’s home base, as an alternative to violence. His book, The Dancing Gangsters of the South Bronx – Rise of the Latin Hustle, tells this story. Willie is now producing a documentary film based on the book.
Willie Estrada is one of the pioneers of the Latin Hustle, which was developed initially in the South Bronx during the early 1970s. Later, recruited to dance on the Hustle Team by George Vascones, president and founder of the Latin Symbolics Dance Company, in late 1974, Willie later led a Rock dance team called “The Rock Masters.” He gained city-wide fame, winning numerous dance contests with his first Rock Partner, Willie (Whip) Rivera, during the early 1970s. Willie went on to work as a club promoter – during the late 1970s and into the 1980s, “Willie Estrada Presents” became a household name for many Disco party-goers in New York City. At the close of the “Disco Era,” he returned to school, where he studied computer science and later became a National IT Manager/Director. Afterward, Willie became a booking agent and promoter for some of the most prominent Latino Music talents. In 2009, Willie returned to the dance scene and started sharing stories about dance culture and gang life experiences of the 1970s. He began teaching rock and hustle dance in and around New York, and in 2011, he was invited to tour Europe with the Rock Steady Crew, where he did workshops and lectures and taught the Latin Hustle and rock cultures of the early 1970s. Willie has traveled extensively worldwide doing something he has always loved. Most recently, Willie worked as a Technical Consultant for the Netflix series, “The Get Down,” in which he also portrayed “Papa Fuerte’s” (Jimmy Smits) right-hand man in a recurring role.
As a History Keeper, Willie is continuing to develop his film, “Rise of the Latin Hustle,” and tell stories about St. Mary’s Recreation Center and its importance in his neighborhood when the Bronx was burning and gang wars were raging in the South Bronx. He is also hard at work on the sequel of his first book, which he just finished the first draft of – it is slated for release for publication in the summer of 2025. For the past year, Willie has been documenting many local events in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx, and he has compiled many stories he is actively developing for the History Keepers project.
