A first of its kind cultural center and museum dedicated to Dominican history and heritage is coming to New York City, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced on Sunday.
Hochul said the new Dominican Center for the Arts and Culture will be located in Inwood at 375 W. 207th Street, right next to a subway train yard on the banks of the Harlem River. It’ll be run by the Dominican Studies Institute at CUNY, and will include an exhibition space to display Dominican and Latino artists, as well as a theater space for performances and lectures.
The center will also house a children’s library focused on preserving the Spanish language, and will host an oral history project focusing on preserving the cultural history of upper Manhattan.
Hochul said the state will dedicate $12.5 million to help get the center off the ground. Her announcement came the same day the National Dominican Day Parade returns to Manhattan. The parade celebrates the culture of the Dominican Republic and its diaspora in New York.
Dominicans make up New York City’s largest foreign-born population. More than a million people from the country live in the New York City metro area, according to City College of New York Dominican Studies Institute. The institute calls the city a “hub of the Dominican population in the U.S.,” where a third of the country’s entire Dominican population resides. .
Hochul said in a statement the culture center “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.”