A state board has voted, just barely, to recognize a new Washington Heights-Dominican Cultural Historic District, in a tie break that reflects a divide in the neighborhood about the proposal.
The move in Albany on Thursday by the New York State Board for Historic Preservation to recommend listing the district in the National Register of Historic Places is the culmination of years of research, spearheaded by the Dominican Studies Institute at the City University of New York.
The proposed district would cover all of Washington Heights east of Broadway, from West 155th Street up to Dyckman Street.
If approved by the National Park Service, the federal listing would formally recognize Dominicans’ contributions to the Manhattan neighborhood’s culture and history. At the board meeting, a representative of the CUNY institute read a statement from Ramona Hernandez, its director, who said the proposal captures “the labor and the dreams of the community.”
Her remarks invoked a period in the late 20th century when Dominican immigrants were a dominant presence in the neighborhood as it contended with challenges that included drug trafficking and disinvestment.
“They came and they stayed put, at a moment when buildings were being sold for $1; at a moment when many were running away, moving out and settling on more attractive neighborhoods in the city,” her statement read.
But neighborhood locals called into the online meeting to speak out against the proposal to the board — whose members appeared to be taken aback by the fervor.
Chelsea Towers, survey and national register coordinator for the New York State Historic Preservation Office, announced that the state had received 27 objections and 37 public comments in opposition, along with letters of support from about 45 people .
Towers reported that she was still getting emails during the meeting. “My inbox is blowing up,” she told the board.
Tanya Bonner, a social policy consultant and former member of Community Board 12, helped to mobilize community members opposed to the proposal, which she said obscures the cultural contribution of other groups in the neighborhood.
The area’s population includes African Americans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans and Cubans, and Dominicans account for about 44% of the population of Washington Heights, according to the most recent Census data.
“I don’t take lightly to erasure,” Bonner told THE CITY before Thursday’s meeting. “I don’t care who’s doing it.”
Bonner emphasized that other historic sites exist in Washington Heights, like the Audubon Ballroom where civil rights activist Malcom X was assassinated in 1965.
“I live across the street from the Audubon! So to call it a Dominican cultural district is where people are having an issue, because it is not just that,” she continued.
Bonner was one of six residents who spoke against the proposal, all of whom emphasized how much they valued living in a multicultural community — Dominicans included — and didn’t want to downplay that diversity by elevating only one group.
Afua Preston lives on Sylvan Terrace, a unique row of houses that is part of the Jumel Historic District, which is already on the national register. She asked that the lines of the proposed Dominican district be redrawn.
“The Jumel Historic District, aside from taking the land from the Lenape, has been historically Black and white,” said Preston, referring to the Native American people who lived in the area now known as New York City.
Community members also contended they hadn’t been given the opportunity to weigh in or contribute ahead of the vote. Starting 30 days before the vote, the state notified property owners an opportunity to weigh in. But most Washington Heights residents don’t own homes — 87% of residences in the neighborhood are rented, according to Census data.
By the time the board moved to vote on the nomination Thursday afternoon, its members seemed shaken. “I don’t want to make a good situation bad, or make people feel they won or they lost,” said board member Thomas O’Maggs.
“It seems to me that this is a train that’s moving a little too fast,” he added.
The board’s first vote ended in a tie: five for, five against, and one abstention. Then it took another vote, with the same result.
Deputy Commissioner Daniel Mackay then stepped in: “The board’s advice is advisory,” he said. “We don’t often acknowledge that because there’s often such great synchronicity.”
He broke the tie in favor of the proposal, advancing the nomination to the National Park Service.
Angry comments filled the virtual meeting’s chat box, including simply: “Shame.”
Fluid Borders
In the Washington Heights-Dominican Cultural Historic District proposal, CUNY researchers emphasized this area’s historic architectural and social significance, highlighting sites like the Morris-Jumel Mansion and the Highbridge Water Tower, and a range of architectural styles from Renaissance Revival to Art Deco.
According to the proposal, though there were “Domincans” in Washington Heights since 1613 — the first European settler in Manhattan came by way of what is now the Dominican Republic — the “significance” of Dominican social history starts in the 1960s.
After subway service opened in the 1920s, Washington Heights became home to many waves of immigrants, according to Manhattan Borough Historian Robert Snyder — at first, mostly Jewish and Irish families, along with some Greek and Armenian New Yorkers.
As the area’s population climbed, debate began about the borders of Washington Heights, which were “drawn in racial terms,” said Snyder.
In the 1940s, it was common to hear “Washington Heights begins where Harlem ends,” as detailed in Snyder’s book Crossing Broadway: Washington Heights and the Promise of New York City — reflecting efforts of white residents in Washington Heights to distance themselves from the mostly Black population of Harlem.
“Neighborhood borders in New York City are always fluid, and any claim to say they are firmly fixed is historically not tenable,” Snyder said.
In the 1950s, many Jewish and Irish residents left Washington Heights and incoming Latin American immigrants from Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic took their place. The largest influx of Dominican immigrants — many of them Afro-Latino — arrived in the 1960s and 70s, driven by unrest that followed dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo’s death in 1961.
Snyder said he appreciates recognition of architectural gems but expressed unease about permanently branding a neighborhood based on the contributions of a single ethnic group.
He pointed to another Manhattan example: When the East Village was mostly German, “if you named St. Marks Place the capital of Kleindeutschland in 1870, what would you call that neighborhood in 1920 when it was mostly Jewish?”
Most people THE CITY interviewed on the plaza outside New York-Presbyterian Hospital on 168th and Broadway supported the concept of a Dominican historic district for the area — even if they had never heard of it until then.
John Banchs, a Bronx resident getting his hair braided in the plaza by Taya Mansaray, said the Dominican presence in Washington Heights is a fact of life.
“This is Dominican Town,” Banchs said. “The Google Maps says ‘Little Dominican Republic’”
Mansaray, a Brooklyn resident who is half Dominican, half Barbadian, said the proposal sounds alright — but she’s hesitant to recognize a potentially exclusionary title. “Being fair is the best thing possible for me,” she said. “Making it for everybody. Not having a specific name.”
The Road to a Dominican District
To Hernandez, a listing in the National Register of Historic Places is a way to ensure that Dominican history and culture aren’t forgotten, and to encourage other marginalized groups to do the same.
“This is gonna open the door for other communities to claim things that they have done,” she said.
Unlike a listing by the city Landmarks Preservation Commission, the recognition would not affect what owners can and can’t change on their building facades, but it could make them eligible for building preservation tax breaks.
Hernandez’ proposal is not the first attempt to formally recognize Dominican contributions to Washington Heights.
In 2021, U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat attempted to honor Dominican heritage in Upper Manhattan by submitting a congressional resolution that Washington Heights and parts of Harlem be renamed “Quisqueya Heights,” after a Taíno word. Espaillat represents New York’s 13th Congressional District, and is the first Dominican American to serve in Congress.
His effort received swift and broad pushback, and he rescinded the resolution. He has since introduced a watered-down version of the bill, which supports the “designation of a noncontiguous Dominican cultural heritage district under the control of the National Park Service.”
Hernandez thinks of getting an official national designation as writing Dominicans’ impact into a big book of American history — one where many groups’ contributions have been left out.
“What goes down written in that book are places that somehow have contributed to the building of this nation,” she said. “And that is an acknowledgement that is written with blood and it’s written on stone. It does not go away, it doesn’t disappear, it stays there forever.”
