Rep. Adriano Espaillat Ends Push To Rename Harlem Neighborhoods, Moves To Create Dominican Cultural Heritage District

Upper West Side NY

28 October, 2021

12:59 PM

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Columbia Daily Spectator BY ESTHER SUN OCTOBER 26, 2021 When Rep. Adriano Espaillat began his push to rename large swaths of Upper Manhattan to "Quisqueya Heights" in February, his proposal's attempt to spotlight the Dominican presence in the area garnered fierce pushback from its multiethnic residents. Now, after months of controversy surrounding the renaming, Espaillat has dropped his renaming plan and is instead calling for the creation of a Dominican cultural heritage district. Espaillat's original resolution, titled "Recognizing the Dominican community's presence and contributions to Hamilton Heights, Washington Heights, and Inwood," proposed to rename these neighborhoods Quisqueya Heights and was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives with co-sponsorship by two Representatives from Texas. "Quisqueya," a Taíno word, is a Caribbean island on which the Dominican Republic and Haiti are located. Along with renaming, the bill moved to display these neighborhoods with the name Quisqueya Heights on commonly-used maps and public records such as Google Maps, Wikipedia, GPS systems, and MTA maps. The newly-revised resolution was introduced to the House on Oct. 12 and instead proposes the creation of a noncontiguous Dominican cultural heritage district in Washington Heights and Inwood. The proposal does not include Hamilton Heights, which is already designated as a historic district, and no longer mentions renaming any areas. Both of Espaillat's resolutions cite gentrification as a key motivator for his push to foreground Dominican contributions to the neighborhoods. Indeed, recent years have seen accelerating gentrification in Upper Manhattan—halted only temporarily by the COVID-19 pandemic—with development projects in Inwood regaining pace after New York's Supreme Court permitted rezoning of the area in July 2020. In the past year, developers have moved to build high-rises for apartments and schools on land currently occupied by supermarkets, auto-body shops, parking lots, and more. Nevertheless, residents in the community were divided on the proposal to rename. Many saw a potential for it to undermine the diverse demographic history of the neighborhood and the cultural contributions of other ethnic groups. Washington Heights in particular has been home to thousands of immigrants for the past century. The early 1900s saw the migration of Irish, German, and Eastern Europeans to the neighborhood. During World War II, the influx of Jewish refugees led to Washington Heights being unofficially known as "Frankfurt on the Hudson." In the decades following World War II, Washington Heights became the final destination for Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and Greeks in the 1950s and '60s, and a large influx of Dominicans in the mid-1960s after the Dominican Civil War. Dominicans are currently the predominant ethnic group in the neighborhood. This focus on the diversity of the neighborhood was passionately articulated by many other residents and community board members at Community Board 9 meetings in September and early October. 419 out of the 440 attendees expressed opposition to the renaming at a special board meeting on Oct. 13, which was held specifically to discuss this topic. In addition, some residents believed that this was not a decision for Espaillat to make, but rather one for the community to decide on. Curtis Young, chair of the Public Safety Committee of Community Board 12, has lived in Washington Heights for the past 16 years and was apprehensive about the renaming. "I was initially alarmed because it's really unusual for a Congress member to make a gesture of this nature," Young said. "It's not really within the congressional authority or power to help facilitate renaming our neighborhoods." The pushback against renaming came not only from non-Dominican residents but from many Dominicans as well. "I wouldn't agree at all with any renaming of … these two communities," Ramona Hernández, director of the Dominican Studies Institute at The City University of New York, said. "I will not agree with that. I will not support that. These are things that have to be proposed by the community themselves—by whatever they want to do. It would have to be put out to a vote … to hear the voice of the people that live in that area." At a general board meeting on Oct. 21, CB9 ultimately passed a resolution to officially oppose the renaming of Hamilton Heights to Quisqueya Heights (Washington Heights and Inwood are served by CB12). In light of the community's focus on diversity in the wider debate over the renaming, the board's resolution also mentioned finding ways to protect the district's diversity by considering problems such as rising rent and housing costs—a difficult environment for small businesses—inequality that threatens public safety, and hate crimes across the U.S. Espaillat's plan to designate a Dominican cultural heritage district in Washington Heights and Inwood received a more positive reaction from the community than the proposal to rename. "[Creating a cultural heritage district] is something that has been done many, many, many times with other communities, so this call is right in line with that, and I see no reason why anybody [would] not like Dominicans to do that with the Washington Heights area," Hernández said. "We just hope that this is done with more people … to recognize their marks and their contributions." There are currently 149 historic districts throughout NYC's five boroughs. Historic districts recognized by New York City's Landmarks Preservation Committee enjoy safeguards from any construction, reconstruction, alteration, or demolition of buildings or landscape features without special approval from the city planning commission. Espaillat's proposal "will imply some regulations about what things can be torn down, what cannot be torn down, protection of certain buildings and areas," said José Moya, professor of history at Barnard and director of the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia. "That actually has real legal implications and protections." Furthermore, though the Dominican proportion of the populations in Washington Heights and West Harlem has been declining for the last decade, Moya believes Dominican culture is so entrenched in these neighborhoods that "the Dominican 'flavor' [of the area]—the dominant flavor—will remain in spite of names." Young supported the designation of a Dominican cultural heritage district. "It is a way to educate future generations of the cultural contributions of the Dominican people uptown," he said. He also pointed out the importance of providing educational curricula to coincide with the designation of cultural heritage sites. Young suggested that it could be an opportunity for local school districts to have their classes visit certain sites and engage with the cultural history through lesson plans. "I think there's a lot of opportunity for us when we think about: what does it mean to live in a city as diverse as New York City?" Young said. "And how do we include everyone in our curriculum and acknowledge different neighborhoods for what they bring to the cultural context of the city overall?" Staff writer Esther Sun can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow Spectator on Twitter @ColumbiaSpec. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.