National Register Now Lists Part Of Washington Heights As A ‘Dominican Historic District'

By Rachel Kahn, The City

February 7, 2025

A new Dominican Historic District in Washington Heights is officially on the National Register of Historic Places, despite pushback from parts of the community who say they were left out of the designation process.

When a state board voted to pass on the nomination to the national level in September, it happened at a contentious meeting where many locals showed up to oppose it.

Those against the idea said that recognizing only the history and contributions of the Dominican community overlooked the changing nature of the neighborhood and the historic sites that pertain to other ethnic groups, like the Audubon Ballroom where civil rights activist Malcom X was assassinated in 1965.

“I don’t take lightly to erasure,” one Washington Heights resident Tanya Bonner told THE CITY at the time. “I don’t care who’s doing it.”

However, the board also received dozens of letters in support of the idea from those who agreed that the Dominicans’ impact on the neighborhood should be commemorated. As of the latest Census, Dominicans make up around 45% of the district’s population.

In late November, the proposal was returned to its submitters and the State Register for “technical and substantive issues,” according to an evaluation from the National Register of Historic Places obtained by THE CITY.

According to a spokesperson from the National Parks Service — which oversees the National Register — the number of nominations returned with revisions each year varies, and the National Register then works with the State Parks Service to improve the nomination.

Washington Heights was set to be named Little Dominican Republic, Sept. 12, 2024. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY

Dr. Ramona Hernandez, the director of the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute and the proposal’s main architect, expected this kind of back-and-forth. Even before the State Register vote in September, she had worked with researchers to hone and adapt the proposal.

Hernandez said the revisions were a continuation of the work she and her colleagues had already been doing: providing proof of Dominican history and impact in various locations, and showing that they had made the built environment their own.

“If you say this building has been here for 200 years, you have to prove it,” said Hernandez.
She also changed the name: from “Washington Heights — Dominican Cultural and Historic District,” to simply “Dominican Historic District.”

When she was informed via email that the proposal was accepted, Hernandez felt as if the National Parks historians were on her side. “I felt that they were happy,” Hernandez said. “I felt that they were really involved in this. That, somehow, the Dominican people have touched them.”

However, many of the recommendations made in the evaluation by the National Register were ultimately not included in the new proposal — and it was still approved. The historic district was published as part of the National Register’s weekly list of approved properties on Jan. 31.

‘It Should Never Have Happened’

The National Register’s evaluation emphasized a need for more community engagement before moving forward.

“Additional community involvement and public information meetings are strongly recommended
regarding future revisions of this nomination,” the evaluation said, written by senior National Register historian Lisa Deline.

But no other public meetings happened before the historic district popped up on the official list, according to Bonner, a former Community Board 12 member who has continued to mobilize like-minded residents who oppose the Dominican Historic District.

After she heard that the proposal had been sent back to Hernandez with revisions, Bonner set up two meetings with Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office to voice her concerns. When Bonner met with representatives from the governor’s office in January, she was not told that the proposal had, in fact, already been re-approved by the state on Dec. 16, and then by the National Register on Jan. 24.

“We had no idea, no one communicated with the community,” said Bonner. “We don’t even know what they changed.”

Before the vote by the state board last fall, Bonner felt as if the community was not provided with enough opportunity to weigh in. And when the proposal was sent back, she viewed it as a second chance to say she felt it excluded other groups, including Black Americans like herself, Cubans, Puerto Ricans and Jewish people.

But despite repeated emails to State Parks officials, she was not told of the proposal’s resubmission and subsequent approval.

“People are still very angry, to have it happen a second time — even after we clearly stated that we were being disenfranchised the first time. It’s unconscionable, it should never have happened,” Bonner said.

Washington Heights sits north of the Midtown skyline. Credit: Gjorcheski/Shutterstock
Now, she’s working with other community members to seek legal assistance to get the proposal removed from the National and State registers and back on the table for revisions. She’s also working to change a current rule that only property owners must be notified and given a formal opportunity to weigh in on nominations for the National Register of Historic Places.

“No community that’s more than 80-something percent renters should have a process based on land owners and property owners,” said Bonner. “That’s built-in disenfranchisement.” In Washington Heights, 87% of households are occupied by renters.

In addition to recommending more public input, the evaluation also instructed that the final section on “Continued Dominican Placemaking” be “removed” as it references events in the “very recent past,” and to exclude landmarks such as the Morris-Jumel Mansion and the High Bridge Water Tower as “irrelevant” to the discussion of Dominicans’ use of the built environment. These changes were not made in the final version.

For her part, Hernandez said she had multiple meetings with the State Historic Preservation Officers on the nomination and answered their questions until they deemed it satisfactory to be sent back to the National Register for review. The National Register declined to comment on whether they normally accepted nominations that had not incorporated all of their feedback.

When Hernandez heard that the proposal was accepted, she said it was a “pleasant surprise.” She had expected the process to have taken even longer, and was happy that even in the current political climate in D.C., that the contributions of the Dominican people were being recognized on a national level.

“We are living in a moment in the history of the U.S. in which I don’t know whether these kinds of things are valued,” Hernandez said. “It’s going to affect children in schools, it’s going to affect people and how they see themselves — you have to think twice when you think we have no value.”

This press release was produced by The City. The views expressed here are the author’s own.