For a woman who never sought fame, Ida Carlini (née Puente; born Ida Pereira) seemed to move effortlessly through the company of those who had it. Born Ida Pereira in Brooklyn in the 1930s, she grew up in a neighborhood alive with the pulse of postwar life — stoop-side gossip, music on every corner, and the mingling scents of home-cooked meals from half a dozen homelands. Her father was Brazilian, her mother Puerto Rican, and together they gave Ida the best of both worlds: her father’s warmth and rhythm, her mother’s humor and resilience.
She came of age when New York was reinventing itself through sound. Latin music, once confined to small community halls, had become the heartbeat of the city. The Palladium Ballroom, Birdland, the Village Vanguard — they were temples of percussion and brass, where cultures collided and something new was born. It was in that world that Ida met Tito Puente, the young bandleader who would soon be crowned the “King of Mambo.” Their connection was short but unforgettable. In 1953, she gave birth to their son, Richard Puente, who would later make his own mark in music as a world-class percussionist, recording on dozens of albums and co-founding the disco-funk group Foxy on Henry Stone’s TK Records in the 1970s.
By the late 1950s, Ida had followed the rhythm south to Havana. Cuba was then a glamorous, volatile paradise — a magnet for celebrities, musicians, gamblers, and those who blurred the lines between all three. There, she worked for and befriended Meyer Lansky, the quiet, calculating architect of the island’s hotel and casino empire. Ida wasn’t part of the machinery that powered Havana’s underworld, but she understood its codes. She moved among powerful men and famous names with the self-assurance of someone who had learned how to survive in every room she entered. Those years in Cuba added a worldly sheen to her Brooklyn roots, and when she eventually returned to the United States, she brought back not only stories but a sense of poise that would define her next chapter.
In the 1960s, Ida settled for a time in Miami Beach, where the air was warm with salt and saxophones and where the nightlife glowed with the same neon energy that once lit Havana. She opened a club called Ida’s Eastside, a smoky, stylish room that became a haven for artists, comedians, and musicians drifting between gigs. Among its regular performers was the young Lenny Bruce, whose razor-edged comedy tested every limit of American decency. Ida kept the peace, smoothed the egos, and ran the place with a light but steady hand. The crowds were unpredictable — locals, tourists, jazzmen, and the occasional movie star — but Ida made everyone feel they belonged.
Later, she returned to New York and opened Ida’s Hangout, a Manhattan nightclub that reflected the city’s restless pulse. The ownership traced back to Anthony “Tony Bender” Strollo, a Genovese family figure whose reach extended deep into the city’s nightlife. But it was Ida who gave the club its personality. Elegant and unflappable, she was its face, its rhythm, and its peacekeeper. The crowds she attracted were as eclectic as the city itself. Dizzy Gillespie and Sammy Davis Jr. might stop by after a show. Shelley Winters often held court at the bar. On certain nights, familiar figures from Havana’s golden days appeared quietly, as if drawn back to her gravitational calm. Ida’s places were where music, mischief, and money coexisted — where the famous and the forgotten mingled under the same haze of cigarette smoke and brass.
Through it all, Ida remained grounded. She treated everyone — jazz legends and bartenders alike — with the same easy grace. She knew that nightlife was not only about glamour but about connection, and she created spaces that felt intimate even when they were filled to capacity.
Eventually, she stepped away from that world of late nights and bright lights. She married Carlos Carlini, a man of Brazilian and Italian descent whose humor and loyalty brought her balance. Together they raised three children — Charles, Christina, and Ari — in a home filled with warmth, laughter, and the constant hum of music.
Ida’s story, seen from a distance, reads like a parable of her time: a woman navigating the crosscurrents of art, crime, and culture with quiet composure. She witnessed the twilight of Havana’s high life, the rise of Latin jazz, the moral storms of the 1960s, and the fading glamour of old Manhattan. Through every upheaval, she carried herself with dignity and discretion, content to let her actions speak for her.
She left behind no memoir, no interview, no self-mythology — only the quiet echo of her presence, carried forward in her children and in the memories of those who once stepped through her club doors and felt, if only for a night, that they belonged.
Ida Carlini’s life was a testament to grace in motion, to a woman who could move between worlds that rarely touched, who made people feel at ease in rooms filled with danger and brilliance, and whose rhythm — steady, soulful, unmistakably her own — still lingers in the air.
