NYC’s first Dominican arts and cultural center coming to Inwood
Gov. Kathy Hochul marches in the 2024 Dominican Day Parade. Photo credit: Susan Watts/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul on Flickr
Upper Manhattan will soon be home to the city’s first-ever institution dedicated to the vibrant arts and culture of the Dominican Republic. Gov. Kathy Hochul on Sunday announced $12.5 million in funding to help establish the Dominican Center for the Arts and Culture at 375 West 207th Street. The center will include a museum and exhibition space featuring Dominican artists, a theater space, a children’s library, and an oral history and archives project preserving the cultural history of Inwood/Washington Heights, the most populous Dominican neighborhood in the country.
Led by the Dominican Studies Institute (DSI) at the City College of New York (CUNY), the facility will be New York’s first cultural center dedicated to preserving and celebrating the arts and culture of the Dominican Republic, including New Yorkers of Dominican descent.
The children’s library, managed by a New York Public Library branch in collaboration with DSI’s Dominican Library, will focus on “the preservation of the Spanish language,” according to a press release.
Rep. Adriano Espaillat, who said he secured nearly $38 million in public investments for the project, applauded the governor’s funding contribution.
“Dominican culture and the diaspora have had an undeniable impact on communities throughout the nation, and nowhere is that more evident than here in New York City, and especially in Northern Manhattan,” Espaillat said. “There is a pressing need for a Dominican cultural center to recognize and celebrate the contributions of our community. I am deeply appreciative of Governor Hochul for her commitment of more than $12.5 million in state funding to support the development of the center.”
Hochul revealed the new center on the same day as NYC’s 42nd annual Dominican Day Parade. The festive event celebrates the city’s Dominican community, which is the largest in the United States and the largest foreign-born population in the five boroughs, according to Gothamist.
“New York wouldn’t be who we are today without our Dominican community,” Hochul said. “Through this first of its kind arts and cultural center, New York will celebrate and preserve the history of the Dominican Republic as well as the countless contributions Dominican Americans have made to help shape our Northern Manhattan community into what it is today.”
The new facility will sit across the street from The People’s Theatre: Centro Cultural Immigrante, a performing arts and research center in Inwood dedicated to immigrants and the immigrant experience that broke ground last fall. The center, located within the mixed-use development at 405-407 West 206th Street, will serve as the permanent home for the People’s Theatre Project, which produces original theater created by immigrants and artists of color.
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