text: La Perla belongs to and consists of the northernmost stretches of the subbarrios Mercado (west) and San Cristóbal in San Juan Antiguo barrio. The dividing line between the subbarrios is the imagined extension of Calle San Justo to the north beyond the old city wall to the Atlantic coast. The eastern part consists of Census blocks 3002, 3009 und 3010, with a population of 64, 35 housing units (4 unoccupied), and 31 households, on  41,348 square yards (8.5 acres; 34,572 m²).
  Media and popular culture
  La Perla was the true site of the fictional "La Esmeralda" barrio depicted in Oscar Lewis's sociological work "La vida: a Puerto Rican family in the culture of poverty--San Juan and New York", describing the lives of Puerto Rican slumdwellers and prostitutes. From La Perla, through taped interviews with dozens of intertwined family members who lived there in the 1940s-1960s, Lewis wrote an award-winning and controversial book. It was controversial because his award-winning book, written in 1967, would influence the way people viewed Puerto Rican women and Puerto Ricans, in general. "Many who read his book assumed the whores of La Perla were typical of all Puerto Rican women."
  In 1978, salsa singer Ismael Rivera had a hit song, written by composer Catalino Curet Alonso, in honor of this community, and named after it. In 2009 Urban Music group Calle 13 released another tribute song, also  named La Perla, in collaboration with Ruben Blades. In the song, Blades references Rivera's early effort; in the song's video, Blades pays his respects to Curet by visiting his tomb at the community's Santa María Madgalena de Pazzis cemetery.