|
ZONA COLONIAL, SANTO
DOMINGO
designated a WORLD CULTURAL HERITAGE
SITE by UNESCO in 1986
AND OTHER POINTS OF INTEREST IN THE
CAPITAL
by Dr. Lynne
A. Guitar
Independent scholar
resident in Santo Domingo--
Ph.D. in History and Anthropology
from Vanderbilt University
See website:
www.studentservicesdr.freeservers.com
or E-mail: lynneguitar@yahoo.com
HISTORICAL
SUMMARY OF SANTO DOMINGO, CAPITAL
OF THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
In January of 1494,
Admiral Christopher Columbus founded
La Isabela on the north coast, just
east of the remains of Fort La Navidad,
where the 39 men left behind from
the famous 1492 voyage had perished.
But Columbus’s town was on a
poorly chosen site. Two years later,
the Spaniards began to abandon La
Isabela for Nueva Isabela on the south
coast, which was founded August 4,
1496, by Columbus’s brother
Bartolomé on the eastern bank
of the Río Ozama at the mouth
of the Caribbean Sea. The new site
had good drinking water readily available,
fertile land, many Taínos to
grow food—and it had gold nearby,
the so-called Old Mines in what is
today San Cristóbal. So many
Spaniards had died in La Isabela that
the name itself was considered to
be unlucky. Instead of using the official
name of Nueva Isabela, residents of
the new European town used the name
of its fortress, Santo Domingo de
Guzmán. On August 5,1502, the
new governor, Nicolás de Ovando,
moved the town from the eastern bank
of the river to its present location
on the west bank, so today’s
capital can legitimately celebrate
two founding dates. The new city was
well planned, laid out on a grid pattern,
to be protected by strong stone walls
and a series of forts along the perimeter.
Peter Martyr D’Anghiera,
a tutor at the Royal Spanish Court
and one of the colonial chroniclers,
wrote that Santo Domingo was “the
mother” of all the new lands.
For more than 50 years, the capital
and its hinterlands were the provisioning
ground, proving ground, and staging
ground for all of the New World’s
exploration, exploitation, and colonization
by Spaniards. The Columbus family
lived here. Bartolomé de las
Casas lived here, both before and
after he became a Dominican monk and
Royal Protector of the Indians. Amerigo
Vespucci, for whom all of the Americas
were named, stopped here on his exploratory
voyages. Juan Ponce de León
lived here before he colonized Puerto
Rico and, while looking for the Fountain
of Youth, found Florida. Diego de
Velásquez and Hernando Cortés
lived here before they left for Cuba--Cortés
then went off to conquer Mexico. Vasco
Núñez de Balboa lived
here before he stowed away on a ship
bound for today’s Panama, whose
isthmus he would cross to “discover”
the Pacific Ocean. Francisco Pizarro
lived here before he turned traitor
to his friend Balboa so that he could
lead the Spanish exploration and conquest
of the Inca people that Balboa had
dreamed about leading.
Santo Domingo was
the seat of the Real Audiencia (the
royal Spanish judiciary court, equivalent
to the U.S. Supreme Court) and of
the Royal Treasury. The European-modeled
city, whose grid of neatly laid-out
streets set the pattern for all the
other Spanish New World cities, was
surrounded by stone walls, beginning
in the 1540s (see below), to protect
it from pirates. A crew of African
slaves who were experienced in construction
was brought in to oversee this and
other architectural projects, using
mostly native Taíno Indian
laborers. Santo Domingo boasts the
primada Catholic cathedral in the
New World (primada means that it was
the highest-ranking cathedral, not
the first one—the first cathedral
in the New World was built in the
gold center of Concepción de
la Vega, among the island’s
central mountains), a multitude of
magnificent churches and monasteries,
the first convent, the first hospital,
the first European paved road, the
first university, treasury office
and smelting ovens, warehouses and
government offices, and magnificent
stone mansions, including the Alcazar
or “Columbus House” built
by Christopher’s son Diego and
his blueblood wife doña María
de Toledo—Diego arrived in 1509
to replace Governor Ovando.
Las Paredes
de la Ciudad (The City Walls)
By the 1530s, Spain’s
enemies in Europe were actively seeking
their share of the New World. Several
English and French ships had already
either come to the island of Hispaniola
or were rumored to have done so. To
protect the capital city, the Spaniards
decided to build walls around it and
put forts at strategic points. The
first stone for the encircling walls
was officially laid in 1543, but it
wasn’t until 1547 that a crew
of African slaves arrived to begin
the construction in earnest. They
began with the western and eastern
sides of the city, then the southern.
As late as 1655, the city was still
unwalled in the northwest section
called Santa Barbara, and in 1681
was still unprotected along the northern
boundary where Avenida Mella is today
(last to be built, this section is
in the best condition today).
Along the western
side of the wall, where today’s
Palo Hincado Street runs, were two
gates, the one that now is known as
the Puerta del Conde (Count’s
Gate) and the Puerta de la Misericordia
(Gate of Mercy). The English “gentleman”
Sir Francis Drake, who is considered
to have been a horrible pirate here
in the Spanish Caribbean, entered
through these two gates to sack the
city in 1586. The Puerta de la Misericordia
was where Dominican patriots met on
the evening of February 27, 1844—the
date celebrated as Dominican Independence
Day—and fired the shot that
began the fight that would free the
country from Haitian rule.
On the eastern side
of the walls, the shipyard’s
renaissance-style Puerta Don Diego
(Don Diego Gate), with its unique
diagonal Moorish arch leading to and
from the river port, was the principal
entrance to the walled city for more
than four centuries. It was often
called the Sea Gate in the past. Recently
remodeled, the Puerta Don Diego again
boasts stone sculptures of the distinctive
dual-eagle-topped coat of arms of
the Habsburgs, as well as the coats
of arms of the Island of Hispaniola
and the City of Santo Domingo--the
originals were removed during the
19th-century Haitian occupation. The
Puerta Don Diego was guarded by Fort
Don Diego, which projected out into
the Ozama River until 1886, when the
river was widened to improve the port
facilities—in 1937 Trujillo
ordered a small reconstruction of
the fort built on the Avenida del
Puerto so it would not be forgotten.
Trujillo also had tall, hideously
ugly cement walls built to hide the
crumbling southeastern parts of the
original city walls, the part along
the Avenida del Puerto. There has
been talk of removing the cement walls
to reveal the beautiful ancient structures
once again, but nothing has yet been
done about it. Just north of the Puerta
Don Diego, which was the people gate,
is the freight gate, the Puerta de
Las Atarazanas (Drydock Gate).
The elegant churches,
government buildings, and mansions
of the colonial era (most of the earliest
of which were designed by the Spanish
architects Rodrigo de Liendo and Luis
de Moya) were built of native limestone,
decorated with brick and cement appliques.
In the 1700s it became the fashion
to plaster over the original stone
and paint the buildings in bright
colors—this appears to have
begun when, in 1712, King Philip V
ordered everyone to plaster over the
stones because his advisors told him
disease microbes were lodged in the
original building materials. Most
of the wrought-iron balconies you
will see today were added in the late
1800s. Throughout the walled area
of colonial Santo Domingo, orchard
groves and vegetable gardens filled
the spaces between where the houses
ended and the walls stood their silent
guard. Right up to the turn of the
20th century, the Franciscan Monastery
marked the northern boundary of the
city’s residential area, and
the Iglesia de las Mercedes the easternmost.
Small “fortlets” were
built into the protective walls at
strategic locations, which include
those of Santa Barbara, San Gil, Santa
Catalina, San Lázaro, San José,
and San Jerónimo.
1) ORIGINAL
CITY SITE & PORT AREA
The initial city
port was a sandy beach area on the
east bank of the Río Ozama,
below the tall cliffs where the Fortress
of Santo Domingo de Guzmán
stood. Beside the fortress was a home
for the Columbus family, a small church,
and approximately 60 wooden houses
with thatched roofs. Steps carved
out of the stone cliffs wound their
way up to the settlement from the
beach, which was called El Desembarcadero
(Point of Disembarkation). Anyone
who wanted to go to the west side
of the river had to cross in dugout
canoes or in a barge that took them,
their horses, and other goods across.
Many, many Spaniards crossed the river
in the early years, for there were
gold mines 8 leagues to the west,
along the River Haina in the region
that today is San Cristobal, which
is also the region where the first
commercial sugarcane was grown in
the Americas circa 1515.
Parque Arquelógico
de Nueva Isabela (Archaeological Park
of New Isabela) and Iglesia Nuestra
Virgen del Rosario (Church of Our
Virgin of the Rosary). On the east
bank of the Río Ozama, on La
Francia Street in today’s Villa
Duarte sector, is an archeological
park preserving the site of the original
settlement of Santo Domingo. The only
building that remains from the initial
15th-century settlement, however,
is a 20th-century reconstruction of
the little Church of Our Lady Virgin
of the Rosary, the patroness of sailors,
which used to be administered by the
Dominican friars. Padre Bartolomé
de las Casas, Royal Protector of the
Indians, used to hold Mass here. The
stone and adobe church was constructed
in the 1540s, replacing the original
400’ square, wooden, thatched
church. Archeologists recently excavated
the remains of numerous Europeans
and Indians who were buried beneath
the floor. Immediately north are the
remains of the well that served the
town and the Fortress of Santo Domingo.
(It was in this fortress, not the
one on the western bank of the river,
where Christopher Columbus and his
brothers were chained and imprisoned
for “abuse of authority”
in 1500. The fortress slipped into
the river sometime in the past.) After
the well ran dry, the hole was used
by neighborhood residents as a handy
latrine.
Puerto (Port)
Sans Soucí
Until 1998, these
docks on the east bank of the Río
Ozama, just south of the original
El Desembarcadero, were the only docks
in the capital suitable for cruiseships.
But cruising has become so popular,
and Santo Domingo such a popular destination,
not only for its historic interest,
tropical climate, and nearby Caribbean
beaches, but also because of its modern
Las Americas airport, that an additional
cruiseship port, Don Diego, was constructed
on the west bank.
Puerto (Port)
de Don Diego
This new cruiseship
facility on the Río Ozama behind
the Casa de Colón was named
for Admiral Columbus’s older
son and opened in 1998. At night,
particularly on weekends and holidays,
its parking lots become huge open-air
discos where young Dominicans gather
to dance, drink and mingle. Just south
of Port Don Diego, toward the river
mouth, is the dock of the car-and-passenger
ferry that sails several times a week
between Santo Domingo and Mayaguez
in western Puerto Rico.
Parque Arquelógico
del Puerto de Santo Domingo (Port
of Santo Domingo, Archaeological Park)
or Las Atarazanas (The Drydocks)
The river banks where
the new Puerto Don Diego is located,
behind the Casa de Colón (“Columbus’s
House” is the nickname for the
Alcázar, the distinctive arched
palace that dominates the western
shore of the river—described
in the next section), has been a busy
shipyard for five centuries. It was
here, on the western banks of the
Río Ozama, that Spanish ships
unloaded their Old World wares—wine,
wheat, cloth, African slaves--and
loaded up with gold, mahogany, and
Indian slaves, later with cañafístola
(its pods were used to make a popular
purgative medicine), cane sugar, ginger,
and cowhides. The Atarazana’s
Puerta (Gate) Don Diego was the principal
people entrance into the walled city
for centuries—it was also called
the Sea Gate or El Embarcadero (Point
of Embarkation). Today the entire
port area is a protected national
archaeological park. Some of the individual
monuments are described below.
Museo de
las Atarazanas Reales (Museum of the
Royal Shipyards) or Museo de Rescate
Submarino (Underwater Rescue Museum)
Just inside the Puerta
de Las Atarazanas (Drydock Gate),
which is north of the Casa de Colón,
is a museum showcasing silver coins,
glassware, and other objects that
have been recovered over the centuries
from the region’s many shipwrecks,
including those of the Guadaloupe
and Conde de Tolosa. The museum is
housed inside a beautiful brick building
that was once one of the royal warehouses.
In front of it, along the river (a
section called Retreat Beach, Playa
del Retiro), was the largest markets
of the colonial era. It was here that
slave auctions were held. The slaves
were housed in a nearby building known
as La Negreta. All around the warehouse
region lived the coopers, river watchmen,
stevedores, candle makers, ironsmiths,
tailors and sail makers, wheelwrights,
blacksmiths… all the shipyard
laborers.
La Aduanilla
(Little Customs House), Fortín
de la Carena (La Carena Fortlet),
Plaza de Ceiba (Ceiba Plaza), and
Fortín de Angulo (Fortlet of
the Angle)
Walk north along
the banks of the Río Ozama
through the area that was a thriving
shipyard throughout the colonial era
to the remains of a 17th-century Customs
House. A little further yet is the
recently restored Fortín de
la Carena where colonial ships were
cleaned and repaired. Next you’ll
find a small plaza where the trunk
of an ancient ceiba tree was encased
in cement between 1916 and 1924. It
is here that Christopher Columbus
is said to have tied up his ship during
his last voyage to the island in 1502.
A new ceiba now shades the plaza.
Finally, a little further on, is Fortín
de Angulo that closed off the northeasternmost
portion of the walled city. The numerous
fortresses found here are an indication
of how valuable the port area was
to the colonial-era Spaniards.
Fortaleza
Trujillo (Trujillo Fortress)
Separating the modern
port area and the ancient city, just
outside the Don Diego Gate, is an
imposing military barricade built
by Trujillo’s orders in 1937.
It faces the river where Fort Don
Diego was before the Ozama was widened
in 1886.
2) THE AREA
IMMEDIATELY ABOVE PORT DON DIEGO
Plaza de
España (Spain’s Plaza)
Above the port area
is the vast Plaza de Armas, today
renamed the Plaza de España,
where colonial-era soldiers paraded
upon land that was once a large conuco
(agricultural field) of the local
Taíno Indians. (Their leader
was a female, the Cacica Catalina;
she married a Spaniard, Miguel Díaz,
who supposedly led Columbus’s
brother Bartolomé to the region,
where he founded the city.) The southwestern
portion of the plaza was called the
Plaza del Contador (Accountant’s
Plaza) during the colonial era, which
had an adjacent public market. Today
the combined plaza is so vast that
it dwarfs the bronze statue of Nicolás
de Ovando by the Spaniard Juan de
Vaquero. Ovando was Santo Domingo’s
second governor. He moved the city
from the Río Ozama’s
east bank to the west bank in 1502
and supervised construction of the
well organized grid-like layout of
the colonial city that became the
pattern for all Spanish colonial cities
in the New World. Today the Plaza
de España is a popular gathering
place for locals and visitors alike
to stroll while enjoying the evening
breezes off the river, or to enjoy
concerts, which are frequently presented
in the center of the plaza or with
the dramatically night-lit Casa de
Colón, on the plaza’s
eastern side, as a backdrop. Expensive
restaurants and bars with open-air
seating line the western side of the
plaza, along ancient Blacksmiths’
Street (Calle Los Herreros), which
today is an extension of Isabel la
Católica Street.
Alcázar
or Casa de Colón (Columbus’s
House)
This imposing building,
today a museum showing how the elite
lived in the early 16th century, is
the “palace” that was
built for the Second Admiral and third
Governor of the Indies, Diego Colón
(Columbus’s elder son), and
his blueblood wife, doña María
de Toledo. Most commonly called the
Casa de Colón, its official
name is the Alcázar. Construction
on the elegantly arched and colonnaded
Mudejar structure (with Isabelino
and Italian Renaissance-style embellishments)
was begun in 1510. The house has 72
doors and 22 rooms. Diego and María
took up residence in 1515. Ten of
their 12 children were born here,
and the famous Cacique Enriquillo
and Doña Mencía were
married in 1517 in the home’s
private chapel. As early as 1505,
there were huts along the river on
the path that wound up the hill to
where the Alcázar was built,
some of which were used as taverns,
including Pie de Hierro (Iron Foot)
and El Marido de la Cordobesa (The
Cordobesa’s Husband). By 1770,
the Casa de Colón had been
abandoned and was used as a dumping
grounds by nearby inhabitants. City
officials suggested turning the abandoned
Casa de Colón into a jail,
but the plan was unsuccessful. The
building was restored during 1955-1957
at a cost of nearly US$650,000 (which
was a lot of money in those days and
no doubt explains why it was restored
as a two-story building, not to its
original three) and furnished with
period pieces from Spain that added
another $350,000 to the project—the
elegant musical instruments and genuine
16th-century tapestries were donated
by the Duke of Veragua, who was a
direct descendant of Christopher Columbus.
The Casa de Colón had to be
reconditioned again in 1968 because
of all the bullets that tore through
it during the second U.S. military
invasion of 1965 (first was 1917-1924).
On the northern side
of the Plaza de España, immediately
west of the Casa de Colón,
is a beautifully restored building
that was a temporary residence for
the island’s first judges and,
later, a storehouse for imports and
exports. Today you buy your tickets
here to tour the Casa de Colón.
Many other former residences and warehouses
lined the streets to the north of
the Plaza de España in the
colonial era in the area known as
Las Atarazanas (The Drydocks). Today
the buildings around the plaza house
elegant shops and restaurants.
Casa del
Cordón (House of the Cord)
Look west, uphill
along the road named Emiliano Tejera
that leads away from the Plaza de
España. On the southwest corner
of the first crossroads, Emiliano
Tejera and Isabel la Católica
streets, you will see a Banco Popular
housed in a distinctive two-story
stone and adobe mansion that was constructed
in a Gothic Mudejar and Elizabethan
style, with an ornate double doorway
framed by a huge Cord of St. Francis,
the “belt” that all friars
traditionally wear. This is the oldest
known European stone house built in
the New World. The owner was Francisco
de Garay, a scribe and gold miner,
who was one of Admiral Christopher
Columbus’s criados (a “faithful
man”). Garay owned ten other
stone houses in the area, which he
rented out. Rich and powerful, he
became governor of Jamaica in 1515,
and in 1519, Adelantado in today’s
Mexico. Diego Colón and his
wife María lived in the Casa
del Cordón while their palace
was being built. María bore
the first two of their 12 children
here. The judges of the Real Audiencia,
the Royal Court of the Indies, which
was instituted in 1511 to counteract
the power of Diego Colón, heard
cases here until the court and its
offices were moved to Las Casas Reales
in 1516. When Drake invaded and sacked
Santo Domingo in 1586, he used a scale
in the Casa del Cordón to weigh
the booty he collected by ransoming
rich inhabitants. Today the Casa del
Cordón is used as executive
offices by the Banco Popular (but
belongs to the Dominican government).
If you ask politely, you can enter
it and will be given a guided tour
during business hours.
Museo de
las Casas Reales (Museum of the Royal
Houses)
Two buildings at
the southeast side of the Plaza de
España were connected together
in the 1700s because an earthquake
caused serious damage to them in 1673
(look at the window shapes on the
second floor to distinguish one from
the other). Today they house the Museo
de las Casas Reales, a fascinating
museum of Santo Domingo’s colonial
era that was inaugurated by President
Balaguer, along with Spain’s
King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia,
in 1976. In addition to paintings,
archeological objects, and furnishings
from the era of the Taínos
through the 18th century, the museum
has on permanent exhibition the ancient
weapons collections that was once
Trujillo’s and objects from
the ancient pharmacy that once were
used in the first hospital in the
New World, Santo Domingo’s Hospital
Nicolás de Bari. The northernmost
of the two buildings (originally constructed
in 1512) was the official governor’s
office, or captain-general’s
office, with a family residential
area upstairs (though both Ovando
and Colón built their own residences).
The southernmost of the two buildings,
commissioned by Queen Juana “La
Loca” and constructed in 1508,
was built to house the first Casa
de Contracación (House of Trade),
and later housed the Royal Treasury
on the ground floor and the Real Audiencia,
the powerful court that had jurisdiction
over all Spanish territories in the
New World until mid-16th century,
on the second floor. The buildings
face a small plaza, the Plaza del
Reloj de Sol (Sundial Plaza). The
plaza stands high above the cliffs
overlooking the Río Ozama from
the crenellated city walls. The sundial
was placed here in 1753 under the
orders of Governor General Francisco
el Rubio y Peñaranda so that
city officials could see what time
it was by looking out the windows
of their meeting rooms. There are
also two huge colonial-era canons
mounted here, symbols of the administrative
power that was so carefully guarded.
This is a popular site today from
which to peep over the ancient crenelated
walls and view the activities in the
port area below. Directly across the
river is the Iglesia Nuestra Virgen
del Rosario and, in the distance,
the Faro a Colón (Columbus
Lighthouse).
3) SOUTH
OF PORT DON DIEGO, ALONG CALLE DE
LAS DAMAS
Calle de
las Damas (Ladies’ Street)
Leading south from
the Plaza del Reloj de Sol, and continuing
almost to the Caribbean Sea, is the
first European paved road in the New
World. It was originally called Calle
de la Fortalesa (Fortress Street),
but when Diego Colón’s
wife arrived in 1509, she brought
her ladies-in-waiting with her. It
was the first time a quantity of Spanish
women had come to Santo Domingo. They
were accustomed to taking a late afternoon
walk (still a popular pastime here),
but there was nowhere to do so comfortably.
Calle de las Damas was paved and extended
to accommodate them. Some of the colonial
city’s most important buildings
line it both on the east and west.
The other principal
streets of the earliest colonial era
that ran north to south were Isabel
la Católica (ancient names
were Calle de Caño, “Gutter
Street,” because all the sewage
and rain water ran down it, and/or
Calle del Comercio, “Commerce
Street,” because it was the
busiest business street in the colony,
or Calle Santa Bárbara, for
the church at its northern end—another
popular name was Las Cuatro Calles,
recognizing that it had four different
names); Arzobispo Meriño (originally
called Calle de los Plateros, “Silverworkers
Street,” or Calle Las Canteras,
“Quarry Road,” also in
some old documents Calle Los Escudos,
“The Shields Road,” or
La Moneda, “Road of The Coin”
); and María Eugenio de Hostos.
The principal east-to-west streets
were named for Padre Billini, Arzobispo
Nouel, El Conde (governor who saved
the city from the British in 1655,
but the street was originally called
El Clavijo after the founder of the
first children’s school, then
King Street, Imperial Street, El Conde,
Separation Street, and Avenida 27
de Febrero—the name El Conde
was restored in 1934), General Luperón
(originally known as Calle Guarda
Mayor Del Rey, Gutter Street, and
Milk Street), Las Mercedes (originally
known as El Truco), and Emiliano Tejera.
Capilla de
los Remedios (Chapel of Remedies/Chapel
of Divine Help) or Capilla Dávila
(Dávila’s Chapel)
The first building
on the east side of Calle de las Damas
is a small church that was the private
family chapel of Francisco Dávila,
who came to Santo Domingo in 1502
and, by 1514 (at only age 26), was
one of the island’s richest
residents. The chapel was built of
bricks made in his own brickyard.
Many elite Spanish residents attended
mass here until the Cathedral was
completed in 1540. Today the building,
which was remodeled in the 1880s and
restored in 1970, houses a youth organization.
Small musical groups perform here,
too, for the former church has excellent
acoustics, and there are frequent
artistic exhibitions.
Dávila was
a city councilman and had an encomienda
of Taíno Indians who worked
for him. In the 1530s, he was owner
of a sugar cane plantation with several
hundred African slaves, but he lived
in the capital. The Casa de Dávila
(Dávila House) was the building
behind the chapel, high on the cliffs
facing the Río Ozama. It features
a beautiful Andalusian-style fountain
in the patio. The Dávila home
and patio have been incorporated into
the hotel that is planned for a February
2003 opening (see below).
Residencia
del Gobernador Nicolás de Ovando
(Residence of Governor Nicolás
de Ovando)
When Ovando replaced
Columbus as governor in 1502 and moved
the settlement to the east side of
the river, he built this private residence,
with its distinctive gothic entrance
on Calle de las Damas. It was one
of the first stone houses in Santo
Domingo, though Ovando constructed
15 more (some records say 30), which
he rented out. One of these was rented
out to Hernando Cortés when
he lived in Santo Domingo; today it
is the Casa de Francia, across the
street (see below) from the Ovando
House. Many important governmental
decisions were made in Ovando’s
residence, perhaps even the one wherein
Ovando planned how to comply with
royal orders to “pacify”
the Taínos by ordering the
massacre of their most powerful leaders,
counselors, and noble family members.
Christopher Columbus stayed several
nights here in 1504 as Ovando’s
guest when he was recuperating after
being shipwrecked on Jamaica at the
end of his fourth and final voyage
to the Americas. And General Santana,
the first president of the Dominican
Republic (the one who annexed the
Republic to Spain in 1861) lived here.
At that time, the building was known
as The House of the Cannons for the
two huge cannons that guarded the
doorway.... The Ovando Residence was
restored in 1970 and, in the late
1980s, the building opened as a government-run
hotel called the Hostal Nicolás
de Ovando, which closed 10 years later.
The French firm ACCOR, which owns
the Sofitel chain, has leased it and
all the other buildings on that side
of the block, along with two other
hotels in the Colonial Zone. The Ovando
Residence is due to reopen in February
of 2003 as a 125-room, 5-plus-star,
French-run hotel.
Escalinata
de la Victoria (Victoria Stairway)
and Fortaleza Invencible/San Alberto
(Fort Invincible/St. Albert)
Built in the 1940s,
magnificent stone steps lead up from
the port area to Calle de las Damas
at the foot of El Conde street. The
view from the steps down into the
port is magnificent. The Victoria
Stairway was built alongside the 17th-century
Fort Invincible, which locals at the
time called Fort Inservicible (Fort
Useless) because its defenses were
so poor. The fortress was originally
built with funds of the Dávila
family and served as a private fortress
dedicated to San Alberto. From the
top of the stairs, the pedestrian-only
El Conde street leads west to the
Cathedral in the Columbus Plaza, lined
with romantic little international
restaurants with outdoor seating.
Dominican
Cartographic Institute
A functional yet
beautiful old building stands on the
east side of Calle de las Damas, to
the south of the Victorian Stairs.
At various times it has been governmental
offices, a military command center,
and a police station. In 1893 it was
rebuilt to house the telephone exchange
and offices of the Secretary of Labor
And Communication. Today it houses
the Dominican Cartographic Institute,
where you can buy any kind of specialty
map of the country you may desire.
Casa de Bastidas
(Bastidas’s House)
One of the New World’s
first millionaires, Rodrigo de Bastidas
was an accountant in Seville when
he petitioned to come to Santo Domingo
with Ovando’s 1502 fleet. Young
conquistadores laughed at him because
he was old by the day’s standards.
But he had not come to fight his way
to riches. He came to trade. He shipped
in wine and wheat (so necessary for
the Catholic Mass) as well as tons
of underwear, probably to clothe the
“naked” Indians, and he
shipped out Indian slaves. He was
elected Mayor of Santo Domingo and
appointed to the royal position of
Principal Tax Collector. In the late
1520s, now really old, Bastidas regretted
profiting from slavery, fearing it
would keep him out of Heaven, and
vowed to spend his own money to make
the dream of Bartolomé de Casa’s
dream come true—to found a settlement
where Spaniards and Indians would
live in brotherly love. They took
many priests and friars with them
to the mainland, where they founded
Santa Marta (in today’s Colombia)
and Coro (original capital of Venezuela).
Bastidas died in 1527 defending his
new settlement against slavers. His
remains were shipped back to Santo
Domingo and buried in a lavish family
chapel in the Cathedral, immediately
south of the main altar. Bastidas’s
son of the same name is buried with
his father. The son was a Dean of
the Cathedral of Santo Domingo and
Bishop of both Coro, Venezuela, and
San Juan, Puerto Rico. The son owned
26 houses in Santo Domingo and vast
rural estates. The huge building on
the east side of Calle de las Damas
was the Bastidas residence, but mostly
it was built to accommodate the family’s
vast warehouses (the building is attached
to the Ozama Fortress—see below).
The building’s design is quite
utilitarian, but has a spacious interior
courtyard (2000’ meters!) lined
with graceful Romanesque arches. The
Neoclassic portal replaced the original
in the early 18th century, when the
building passed into the government’s
hands after the last male of the Bastidas
line became a priest. It served as
a military barracks for Black and
mulatto troops, military hospital,
and military/police center. Today
the Casa de Bastidas houses a wide
variety of art exhibitions.
Fortaleza
del Ozama (Ozama Fortress)
Construction of the
main tower of the Fortress, the part
called the Torre del Homenaje (Tower
of Homage), began in 1505, three years
after Ovando transferred the settlement
to the west side of the river, which
means that the tower is the oldest
still-standing European stone building
in the Americas. It was expanded into
a fortress complex in later years.
The Fortaleza del Ozama stands on
cliffs 35’ high, only 500’
from where the Río Ozama meets
the Caribbean Sea. Along with the
Fortaleza Santo Domingo, the Fortaleza
del Ozama protected the river mouth,
ensuring that no enemy ships entered.
Other parts were added onto the tower
over the years, turning the building
into a large fortress and stronghold
from enemy attack. It was also where
all new incoming officials had to
swear homage to the Spanish Crown
and its local representatives. Diego
Colón, Christopher Columbus’s
son and heir, not only swore homage
to the crown here, he and his wife
lived in the tower for a short while
in 1509 before moving into the Casa
del Cordón, then into their
own residence. The fortress served
as a jail, too, not only in colonial
times, but until the turn of the 20th
century. There were once residences
and military barracks along the inside
of the western wall. The remains of
the Fortaleza Santiago, including
an old sentry box and four of the
brick arches, can be seen in the southeast
corner of the compound; boldly facing
the Caribbean, this fortress was the
city’s first line of defense.
The Santa Barbara Powder House to
the southwest of the main fortress
(not to be confused with the church/fortress
at the northeastern periphery of the
walled city, which is also called
Santa Barbara) was built in the 18th
century, as was the impressive Portal
de la Fortaleza (Fortress Gate) on
Calle de las Damas. The 18th-century
gate replaced a gate built in 1608
known as Prevention Gate, which had
two huge semicircular towers whose
foundations can still be seen. The
magnificent statue in the courtyard
of the fortress compound is of Gonzalo
Fernández de Oviedo y Valdéz,
who was in charge of the fortress
from 1533-1557 but is more famous
as author of the multi-volumed General
and Natural History of the Indies
(which he wrote at the fort). Trujillo
used the fortress complex for a while
to house political dissidents. Mainly,
however, the modern function of the
fortress was as the Dominican Republic’s
principal military compound (until
the 1920s), then as the anti-riot
branch of the Military Police, which
is why it was forcefully taken by
the U.S.-backed forces during the
1965 fracas. The whole complex was
restored in the 1970s and, today,
is a popular site for music concerts
and cultural festivals. There has
been talk of turning the main fortress
building into a military museum sometime
in the future.
Fortín
de San Fernando (Fortlet of St. Fernando)
At the very foot
of Calle de las Damas, just before
it plunges toward Paseo Presidente
Billini and the Río Ozama,
are the remains of a small fortress
dedicated to St. Ferdinand and a beautiful
little park. The view of the river
from here is breath taking. The Dominican
Republic’s Port Authority has
its piers and offices on the banks
of the river below.
Colegio Santa Clara
(St. Clara School) and the 16th-century
building that today houses the Sociedad
Dominicana de Bibliófilos (Dominican
Bibliophile Society) are among the
many beautiful buildings on the west
side of Calle de las Damas,. Recently
restored, the latter used to be one
of the many police buildings near
the Fortaleza del Ozama.
Casa de Francia
(French House)
Directly across Calle
de las Damas from the Ovando Residence
is one of the houses that Ovando built.
He rented this one out to Hernando
Cortés when he lived in Santo
Domingo. In its courtyard, archaeologists
excavated what may have been the city’s
first gold smelting ovens. Today it
houses the French Embassy and French
Cultural Alliance, where residents
can take French lessons, check out
books from the large French library,
and participate in French cultural
events.
Plazoletta
María de Toledo (Maria de Toledo’s
Plaza)
Also on the west
side of Calle de las Damas, just south
of the National Pantheon (see next
entry), is a beautifully landscaped
plaza with a fountain and two sets
of magnificent arches. The arches
are all that remains of the Jesuits’
cloistered monastery. On Sundays there’s
a pulga here—a flea market selling
a variety of jewelry and antiquities,
many real, many fakes. At the western
end, facing Calle Isabela la Católica,
is a pleasant, open-air restaurant
with attached art gallery, the Plaza
Toledo Gallery and Restaurant. The
gazpacho here is excellent, as are
all the daily lunch and dinner specials,
but the coup de grace is the Chocolate
Decadence dessert. The gallery features
top quality paintings and artwork
by Dominican, Cuban, and Haitian artists.
Iglesia de
los Jesuitas/Panteón Nacional
(Jesuit Church/National Pantheon)
The Jesuits were
latecomers to Santo Domingo, arriving
two centuries after the Dominican
and Franciscan friars. In 1702, on
the southwest corner of Calle de las
Damas and Las Mercedes, across from
the Governor Nicolás de Ovando
residence, Jesuit friars began the
construction of their church on the
site of one of the original houses
built by Ovando. The Renaissance Neo-Classic-style
church was not completed until mid-century
because the Jesuits were busy remodeling
and constructing a series of buildings
up the south side of Las Mercedes,
all the way to Isabel la Católica
Street, which they used as classrooms
from 1701 on. The House of the Jesuits’
School, most commonly called The House
of the Gargoyles for the fascinating
gutter spouts that dominate the exterior
(and which some say the Jesuits took
from the Cathedral), is attached to
the north side of the church at the
southwest corner of Calle de Las Damas
and Las Mercedes. It was built by
Ovando and appears to have been the
home of Hernando Caballero, brother
of the highly placed Diego Caballero.
The Jesuits made it the central office
for the Universidad Real y Pontífica
de Santiago de la Paz y Gorjón,
along with the neighboring house,
which once belonged to Juan de Villorio--in
1747, the Spanish Crown gave the Jesuits
control of the old Colegio Santiago
de la Paz, which was built in 1538
with money bequeathed by the deceased
sugar planter Francisco Gorjón.
In 1767, however, King Charles III
kicked all Jesuits out of the New
World, and the building reverted to
the crown. The building then served
as a tobacco warehouse, as a theater
during the Independence Era, and as
government offices…. In 1958
the former Jesuit church was restored
by Trujillo, who had plans to turn
it into a rich mausoleum where he
could be worshipped in death. After
Trujillo was assassinated in 1961,
Dominicans didn’t even want
his body on the island (he’s
buried in Paris. France), but the
mausoleum idea was a good one. The
church and the two houses that formed
the Jesuit Office were all remodeled
again in the 1970s. The former church
now houses the National Pantheon,
where many beloved Dominican ex-presidents,
writers, and heroes are entombed.
The Pantheon boasts an impressive
bronze chandelier that was donated
to Trujillo by General Franco of Spain,
a vast ceiling mural of The Apocalypse
and Resurrection by Rafael Pellicer,
and ironwork choir grills along the
upper gallery with Latin crosses that,
if you look hard, turn into swastikas—local
guides swear the choir grill was a
gift of Hitler and that it came from
a German prison, but there are no
documents to support this claim.
4) THE COLUMBUS
PLAZA AND CATHEDRAL AREA
Plaza de
Colón (Columbus Plaza)
The Plaza Mayor (Central
Plaza) of Santo Domingo was the heart
of the colonial city. The first cathedral
in the New World was constructed on
its southern side (see below) and
government offices on the north. Until
the new Presidential Palace was built
in the 1940s, the country’s
Congress and Legislative branches
met in buildings here. Along the other
two sides of the plaza, rich inhabitants
built fabulous stone mansions. The
town crier made his announcements
in the Plaza Mayor for all the townspeople
to hear, and after 1532 everyone came
here to get their drinking water,
which was piped in via a gravity-fed
aqueduct from the Franciscan Monastery
atop the hill to the north. In the
late 16th and early 17th centuries,
bullfights were held here, as well
as in several other locations around
the walled-in city. Since 1891, the
eve of the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s
arrival in the New World, the plaza
has been known as the Plaza de Colón
(Columbus Plaza). Every tourist poses
for a photo in front of the impressive
bronze statue sculpted by the French
artist E. Gilbert of Admiral Christopher
Columbus in his famous pose pointing
west, the direction which he claimed
would be a rapid route to sail from
Europe to the gold and spices of the
East Indies. The monument, which was
inaugurated on February 27, 1887,
incorporates design elements of ships’
prows and a nearly naked female Indian,
who appears to be climbing beseechingly
upward toward Columbus. The plaza
is a must-see tourist destination
and a popular park where Dominicans
and foreigners alike come for evening
strolls and/or to enjoy the many concerts
and special presentations held here.
Outdoor restaurants and cigar and
souvenir shops line the plaza, and
vendors hawk postcards, merengue tapes,
jewelry, and other “bargains.”
Catedral
de Nuestra Señora Santa María
de la Incarnación (Cathedral
of Our Holy Lady Mary of the Incarnation)
Seat of the Archbishopric
of Santo Domingo, in 1546 Pope Paul
III elevated the cathedral in Santo
Domingo’s Plaza Mayor above
all others in the Indies. From 1504-1514,
however, the “cathedral”
was a hut-like structure of royal
palms, a temporary structure that
was replaced by another temporary
structure made of wood and adobe.
Plans for a magnificent stone cathedral
were designed by master builder Rodrigo
de Liendo. Governor Diego Colón
laid the cornerstone for the Cathedral
with much fanfare on May 25, 1510—but
construction was delayed again and
again. Furious that the work had not
begun, Bishop Alejandro Geraldini
laid another cornerstone on March
25, 1521, and oversaw construction
of the present-day stone Gothic/Romanesque
cathedral, which was begun in 1521
and built mostly with funds from the
wealthy Bastidas family. The family
founder, Rodrigo de Bastidas, and
his son of the same name, who was
a bishop of the cathedral, are both
buried in the family chapel, which
is just south of the main altar. The
principal part of the structure was
completed in 1540. Four years later
María de Toledo, the widow
of Christopher Columbus’s son,
brought the remains of both her husband
and his father to Santo Domingo from
Spain for interment near the cathedral’s
main altar. (In 1898, the Admiral’s
remains were placed in a chestlike-urn
and exhibited in an ornate monument
within the Cathedral; the urn and
monument were designed by Fernando
Romeo. Both the urn and its monument
were moved to the Columbus Lighthouse
in 1992.) In 1546, Pope Paul III elevated
the cathedral to the position of Catedral
Metropolitana y Primada de las Indias
(primada = “supreme”;
the pope raised the Santo Domingo
cathedral to the status of supreme
over all others in the Indies).
The cathedral’s
southern entrance, leading to Priests’
Alley, is called Geraldini Gate. Priests’
Alley houses the priests’ residences
and has beautifully landscaped courtyards
with elegant sculptures; it has also
been called the Alley of Niches and
Pellerano Alfau Alley. Look for the
cathedral’s symbol, a vase of
lilies, among the design motifs of
the ancient northern portal, the Gate
of Pardons, which faces Columbus Plaza.
The main entrance, St. Peter’s
Gate, which faces west, is double
arched, with a frieze of gargoyles
and other mythical figures, dominated
by the double-eagle crest of the Habsburg
dynasty; the original statues of St.
Peter and the other apostles that
once graced its niches were carried
away by Francis Drake in 1586. Various
cloisters and office quarters were
added to the cathedral over the centuries,
plus eight chapels--these are the
ones nearest the western entrance;
most of which were added in the 18th
century. The cathedral’s overall
design combines gothic vaults, Spanish
Renaissance facades, and Romanesque
arches with baroque decorations. Despite
the centuries of additions, the cathedral
is cited as the one major colonial
building that has remained essentially
unaltered in the colonial city because
Drake and his men sacked it in 1586,
but did not burn it down. Instead,
they purposefully desecrated the cathedral
by using it as a latrine (for the
men and their horses), slaughterhouse,
and storehouse for the booty they
collected, and as a prison--remember
that Drake and his 5,000 men were
Protestants and came at the peak of
the religious wars in Europe.... The
story of the Cathedral’s Bell
Tower is especially interesting. It
was designed by Liendo to be one of
the tallest, most arresting structures
in the city, taller than the Fortaleza
de Ozama’s Tower of Homage.
But in 1547, after the bell tower’s
foundation was completed, an advisor
to Charles V warned that the tall
tower could be seized and used by
enemies to shoot down into the nearby
fortress. Construction was halted.
The brick bell tower that was built
much later on the massive foundation
appears out of place, not only because
it is of brick, not of coral stone
like the foundation, but because of
its “puny” size, relatively
speaking. The Cathedral’s Stained-Glass
Windows were designed by the Dominican
artist José Rincón Mora
from Cotui and donated by Cardinal
Friedrich Wetter, Archbishop of Munich,
Germany, in 1986; Rincón Mora
resides in Germany.
The following Map
of the Cathedral’s interior,
with its multiple chapels, is from
the book Santo Domingo by Carmenchu
Brusiloff and Juan Alfredo Biaggi
(Dominican-American Cultural Institute,
undated).
Escuela Nacional de las Bellas
Arts (National School of Fine Arts)
The former colonial
residences on the northeast corner
of the Columbus Plaza (El Conde and
Isabel la Católica streets)
today house the National School of
Fine Arts. The rest of this quiet
part of El Conde, between the Cathedral
and Calle de las Damas, is filled
with exquisite international restaurants
and bars.
Casa de Abogados
(Lawyers’ House)
The building on the
southeast corner of the Columbus Plaza
(El Conde and Isabel la Católica
streets), where the Dominican Congress
used to meet, has been the headquarters
of the Dominican Bar Association since
the 1960s.
Palacio de
Borgellá (Borgellá Palace)
Building no. 103,
attached to the Casa de Abogados on
the southeast corner of the Columbus
Plaza (El Conde and Isabel la Católica
streets), was constructed overtop
of older government buildings and
residences. It is known as the Borgellá
Palace for General Gerónimo
Máximo Borgella, Military Governor
of the Department Ozama, who lived
here during the Haitian occupation
(1822-44). He built the palace’s
distinctive double-tiered arched portico
in 1830. President Boyer of Haiti
bought the house from Borgella for
US$32,000…. During the Restoration,
the Court of Appeals met here. Today
the Borgellá Palace houses
the offices of Patronato, the governmental
body that controls and protects the
Zona Colonial, all of which has been
designated as a World Cultural Heritage
Site by UNESCO. The façade
of the building was reconstructed
in 1999 to repair damages caused by
Hurricane Georges in September of
1998; the double-tiered portico collapsed
the day after the hurricane due to
weight of all the standing water on
the roof.
Cárcel
Viejo (Old Jail)
Building no. 101
on Isabel la Católica, just
south of the Palacio de Borgellá,
was the colonial jail. In later eras
the building housed a theatre (it
was infamous for the plays that promoted
separatism during the Haitian occupation),
a bakery, and then government offices.
Residencia del Arzobispo
de las Indias (Archbishop of the Indies’s
Residence)—Behind the Cathedral,
on the southeast corner of Isabel
la Católica and a tiny little
street (just one block long) called
Calle de los Nichos, is the building
where the Archbishop of the Indies
currently resides. (Formerly the Archbishop’s
residence was at the southeast corner
of Hostos and Padre Billini streets,
which is today the site of the Bartolomé
de las Casas Park—see below.)
The Castilian-style building with
mudejar decorations dates to the early
16th century. In the mid-18th century
it earned the name House of the Blessed
Sacrament because of a bizarre story
about a pet orangutan and a baby of
the Garay family (the house’s
residents then), who was miraculously
saved from certain death at the orangutan’s
hands after the mother prayed to the
Blessed Sacrament. Other residents
of the house included Alonzo de Fuenmayor,
the first Archbishop of the Cathedral,
and Governor Alexis Carró during
the 19th-century Haitian occupation.
In 1931, a Puerto Rican architect
named Pedro de Castro joined the House
of the Sacrament with the house beside
it under one plateresque façade.
That house had been home to four Dominican
presidents: Ramón Cáceres,
Eladio Victoria, Gen. José
Bordas, and Juan Isidro Jiménez.
The Casa de Diego Caballero (Diego
Caballero’s House, is the central
one on the north side of Calle do
los Nichos. Diego de Caballero was
one of the richest and most politically
powerful of the earliest colonists;
he was First Secretary of the Real
Audiencia. He was already rich when
he began investing in sugarcane. He
owned a plantation on the Río
Yuca with 70 African slaves in 1533,
and another, called Capecipi (or Cepi
Cepin), on the Río Ocoa, with
70 African slaves and 365 Indians
in 1545. Yet another of Caballero’s
plantations, this one at the mouth
of the Río Nigua, is listed
on a 1545 census as “one of
the biggest an richest on this island,”
with 310 African slaves and 50 Indians.
His house in the capital used to be
larger, but appears to have been absorbed
by the auditorium beside it, which
was built for the military.
Palacio Consistorial
(Town Hall Palace), also known as
the Antigüo Ayuntamiento (Old
City Hall)
At the southwest
corner of the Columbus Plaza (Arzobispo
Meriño and El Conde streets)
is the magnificent Palacio Consistorial,
with its distinctive clock tower (El
Vivaque) and arcaded walkways, which
was constructed in the first decade
of the 20th century over the remains
of the original city hall building.
Town meetings were held at the Palacio
Consistorial throughout the colonial
era, and the upstairs floor used to
house the National Library. Part of
the building was also used as a jail
and police station. It is here that
the keys of the city were handed over
to Toussaint Louvertoure and Jean
Pierre Boyer and, for many years after
the Haitian Occupation of 1822-1844,
the building was called “The
Bivouac” because the Haitian
main guard resided there. The Palacio
Consistorial has undergone many changes
and restorations, most recently in
1998. Today the beautiful building
is vacant except when used for state
receptions and other special events,
which include a magnificent Christmas
exhibit each year. The remodeled interior
features Diego-Rivera-style murals
by Vela Zanetti, a Spaniard who was
exiled here during the Spanish Civil
War.
Padre Billini
Plaza
Just south of the
Cathedral, on the northeast corner
of Arzobispo Meriño and Arzobispo
Nouel streets, is the beautiful Padre
Billini Plaza, dedicated to Padre
Francisco Javier Billini. The plaza
is lined with expensive international
stores and has a graceful statue of
the man who founded so many humanitarian
facilities in Santo Domingo--an insane
asylum, hospitals, an orphanage (1869),
and the first public school system
for Dominican children (the latter
he did with the help of his Puerto
Rican friend Eugenio María
de Hostos). Workers reconditioning
the Cathedral in preparation for the
400th anniversary of Columbus’s
arrival in the Americas brought Padre
Billini a chest that they found under
the floor. The chest had a plaque
indicting that it contained the remains
of Admiral Christopher Columbus, which
supposedly had been sent to Havana,
Cuba, for safe-keeping from corsairs.
Padre Billini’s research indicated
that it was probably Diego Colon’s
remains that were sent to Havana—he
claimed that the original Columbus
remains were those that his workers
found in Santo Domingo. (Today three
different places argue that they have
the original Columbus remains: Santo
Domingo, Havana, and Seville, Spain.)
Before its dedication to Padre Billini,
the plaza was known as San Juan de
Diós Plaza.
5) SOUTHEAST QUADRANT OF THE
ZONA COLONIAL
Casa de Tostado (Tostado’s
House)—This fabulous gothic
mansion on the southeast corner of
Padre Billini and Arzobispo Meriño
streets was built circa 1520 by Francisco
Tostado, one of the city’s first
settlers. He had seven other stone
homes around today’s Plaza de
Colón, which he rented out.
Tostado was a royal scribe. He and
his son of the same name made their
fortunes first in gold, and then by
raising, milling, and selling cane
sugar from the 1530s on. Their plantation
in Itabo had 93 African slaves and
210 Indians in 1545, and Santa Isabela,
another of their plantations, this
one on the Río Nigua, had 70
Africans and 130 Indians. The son
was also a professor at the New World’s
second university, the Colegio Santiago
de la Paz (see below) until he was
killed by one of Drake’s cannon
balls. Today their family home is
a Museum of the 19th-Century Dominican
Family. It boasts an ornate cement
window in the Isabelina style on the
northern wall.
Plaza y Parque
Fray Bartolomé de las Casas
(Friar Bartolomé de las Casas
Plaza & Park)
On the site of the
former Archbishop’s residence,
which was originally built in the
mid-1600s and demolished in the early
1900s, off Calle Padre Billini in
between Arzobispo Meriño and
Hostos streets, is a little park and
plaza dedicated to the Royal Protector
of the Indians, Friar Bartolomé
de las Casas, author of many books
that detail the history of the conquest
and settlement of the Americas, and
the mistreatment of the Indians that
ensued. Las Casas was an encomendero
himself until he heard about the sermon
given by Antonio de Montesinos in
1511 (see below), warning Spaniards
to abolish the system. Unfortunately,
one of the methods Las Casas suggested
to the Spanish Crown to save the Indians
was to bring in more African slaves.
But at the end of his long life, after
numerous Atlantic crossings to promote
his cause, and after a history-making
debate with Sepulveda over the humanity
of the Indians, he wrote a letter
lamenting his suggestion to increase
the use of African slaves, recognizing
their humanity, too. He feared that,
despite his decades of good works,
he had condemned his soul to hell
with that suggestion…. The modern
sculpture of Las Casas is by Juan
de Vaquero.
Iglesia de
los Domínicos (Dominican Church)
Among the first of
the Dominican friars to come to Santo
Domingo in 1510 was Antonio de Montesinos,
who was chosen by his peers in 1511
to speak out against the encomienda
system and whose magnificent statue
greets incoming ships where the Río
Ozama empties into the Caribbean Sea.
In 1515 (some records say 1524), work
began on the Dominican Order’s
church and monastery (original name
was El Convento de la Orden de Predicadores
en Américas, “Convent
of the Order of American Preachers”),
located on Calle Padre Billini between
Duarte and Hostos streets, where they
also had a university. It was called
the University of Santo Tomás
de Aquino. Founded in 1538, it was
the first university in the Americas
and offered courses in theology, philosophy,
law and medicine. Unfortunately, the
original university building no longer
exists. It was also called the University
of Santo Domingo and today continues
to turn out quality students as the
Universidad Autónomo de Santo
Domingo, the country’s only
public university. The main work on
the Dominican Church was completed
between 1531 and 1532, but the wooden
shingles of the nave’s roof
were not replaced with a stone vault
until 1746, at which time the Baroque
ornamental elements were added to
the main entrance. It was most likely
a temporary church on this site where
Montesinos gave his famous 1510 sermon
protesting maltreatment of the island’s
Taíno Indians, a sermon that
caused the encomendero Bartolomé
de las Casas to give up his Indians.
In 1515 the former encomendero came
to the new church, where he took his
holy vows to become a Dominican friar
and lived in one of its austere cells.
The Dominican Church has some of the
most magnificent altars of all the
city’s many magnificent churches,
including the main altar, which was
a gift from Charles V. It also boasts
the Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary,
built in 1775, which is the only “cosmological”
chapel in the Americas (and one of
only four in the world); the chapel’s
ceiling is an ornately adorned “star
map.” The Gothic and Renaissance-style
Dominican Church, with its delicate
stone decorations of roses and vines,
is one of the few buildings that Drake
did not burn in 1586, but two friars
were executed in front of the church
by his orders. At the western end
of the Dominican Church Complex is
the Chapel of the Third Order, built
in 1759, with its Baroque appliqué.
Eugenio María Hostos, who founded
the first public school system in
the Dominican Republic, was entombed
in its back garden until his remains
were moved to the Pantheón
Nacional.
Parque Duarte
(Duarte Park)
Across Calle Padre
Billini from the Dominican Church,
this is where the two friars were
executed by Drake’s orders in
1586. Legend also has it that it was
where this peaceful park now stands,
with its statue of Duarte by the Italian
sculpture Tomannime, that the Cacica
Anacaona was hanged in 1503. Bullfights
were held here in the mid-1600s, spilling
yet more blood. In the early 20th
century, the Puerto Rican Eugenio
María Hostos founded the country’s
first school for teachers, La Escuela
Nacional, in the Dominican Convent
attached to the church.
Casa del
Tapao (House of the Hooded One)
On the northeast
corner of Calle Padre Billini and
19th of March Street there is a house
that belonged to a very mysterious
occupant—the Hooded Man or Covered
Man. He always went about hooded,
anonymous, when he went out all, that
is. The rich hermit was rumored to
be a twin to the King of Spain, hiding
to save his life, or a gentleman hiding
from the law.
Iglesia y
Convento Regina Angelorum (Queen of
Angels Church & Convent)
One block west of
the Dominican Church, on Padre Billini
between Duarte and 19 de Marzo, is
the church and convent that were built
for the city’s Dominican nuns.
Construction began circa 1567 and
was finished sometime before 1650.
(Until 1560, the only nuns on the
island were the Franciscan nuns at
Santa Clara.) The existing structure
replaced the original, dating from
1714-1722. It is an elegant convent,
which housed the rich unmarried daughters
(and their personal maids) of the
city’s most illustrious residents,
who were hard pressed to find suitable
husbands. Two of the first European-style
poetesses of the New World lived and
wrote here, Sr. Leonor de Ovando and
Sr. Elvira de Mendoza, and Padre Billini,
who accomplished so much for lower
class Dominicans (but who is more
often known as the discoverer of the
remains of Christopher Columbus),
is entombed here. During the Haitian
Occupation from 1822 to 1844, the
lovely little church and convent was
a military barracks, and later was
turned into a theatre. Today it is
once again a church.
Convento
y Iglesia de Santa Clara (St. Clara
Convent & Church)
Female “Claristas,”
nuns belonging to the Order of St.
Francis, came to Santo Domingo in
1555. This church and the convent
on Padre Billini and Isabel La Católica
streets that housed them was a school
for rich Spanish girls and the first
convent in the New World. The convent’s
orchard was expansive, running all
the way south to the Caribbean Sea.
Drake razed the buildings, which were
restored in 1648 with a generous donation
by the city’s richest and most
powerful inhabitant, don Rodrigo Pimentel.
The Franciscan nuns of Santa Clara
abandoned the island in 1796, moving
to Havana, Cuba. While they were here,
however, the convent, with its plethora
of wealthy young Spanish virgins,
was a convenient “hunting grounds”
for the amorous pursuits of men such
as Francisco Manso de Contreras, the
real-life model for Tirso de Molina’s
Don Juan. Since the 1800s, the church
and convent have belonged to the Order
of Cardinal Sancha.
Colegio del
Gorjón (Gorjón College)
In 1532 and again
in 1540, the bachelor Hernando Gorjón
signed promises that he would will
his entire estate to the crown for
the founding of a college and hospital
in Santo Domingo. For this he received
a multitude of royal favors, including
interest-free loans and permits to
bring in African slaves duty-free,
as well as all the duty-free supplies
and equipment he wanted for his sugar-cane
plantation. Indeed, all his assets
went to the crown, but it turns out
that he had been selling off slaves
illegally and over-valuing his inventories
for years. There was barely enough
money for a college after his death
on January 25, 1547, when his estate,
called Santiago de la Paz, in Azua,
was auctioned off for 23,200 pesos.
The offical name of the university
was Colegio de la Paz y Gorjón.
Situated on the southwest corner of
Arzobispo Aportes and Meriño,
it was the second university in the
New World (the first was San Tomás
de Aquino, founded in 1538 at the
nearby Dominican Church). The university
was moved to buildings constructed
by the Jesuits, who took over its
management in 1748/49 until they were
evicted from all of Spanish America
at the end of the century. Today the
original site of the Colegio Santiago
de la Paz (popularly called Colegio
Gorjón) is the Spanish Cultural
Center, which houses a wonderful library
that is open to the public, sponsors
many art exhibits, concerts, and conferences,
and offers weekly Spanish movies.
Estatua de
Antonio Montesinos (Statue of Antonio
Montesinos)
Just before Christmas,
on Advent Sunday of 1511, the Dominican
friars on the island elected their
best speaker, Antonio de Montesinos,
to give a sermon speaking out against
the system of “encomienda”
whereby groups of Taínos labored
for individual Spaniards, supposedly
in exchange for teaching the Indians
the basics of Christianity and how
to live in a “civilized”
way. “I am the voice crying
out in the desert,” shouted
Montesinos during his sermon, asking
the attendant Spaniards to consider
the fate of the Taíno Indians:
“Are these not human beings?”
he asked, preaching abolition of the
abusive system that he and the other
Dominican friars believed was killing
off the Indians in massive numbers.
There was such a furor over his sermon
that Governor don Diego Colón
and the other powerful men of the
colony demanded that Montesinos return
to the pulpit the following Sunday
to retract what he’d said. He
returned to the pulpit all right,
but only to unleash yet another broadside
against the encomienda system and
the Spanish encomenderos! Bartolomé
de las Casas was one of the encomenderos
who heeded the message (although it
appears that he was not physically
present to hear either of the sermons)
. He gave up his Indians, took holy
orders himself, and became the most
vociferous of the encomienda’s
opponents. The statue of Montesinos
that towers high above the Ozama River,
where it opens into the Caribbean
Sea, was a gift from the Mexican government.
It welcomes visitors to Santo Domingo’s
harbor much in the way that the Statue
of Liberty welcomes visitors to New
York. The site where the statue stands
today is the site of the former Santo
Domingo Lighthouse and the point of
land on which it was constructed is
known as the Baluarte de San José
(St. Joseph Bastion).
Plaza de
la Amistad Domínica-Americana
(Plaza of Dominican-American Friendship)
In front of the statue
of Montesinos, in between José
Gabriel García and Paseo Padre
Billini (the same avenue that is also
known as the Malecón and Avenida
del Puerto), is a beautiful park on
the hill overlooking the Ozama River
where it meets the Caribbean. The
park’s central monument was
donated in 1944 by the American community
of Santo Domingo to commemorate the
Dominican Republic’s 100th anniversary,
hence the plaza’s name. Today,
the plaza is enjoyed by all the local
residents, especially basketball players,
who have a court on the eastern end,
at the site of the entrance of the
Cueva de las Golondrinas (Cave of
the Swallows). This cave was once
the “escape hatch” for
the city’s elite, the place
where the underground tunnels that
abound throughout the city converge.
Beside the Plaza of Dominican-American
Friendship are the remains of Fort
San José, which helped guard
the city’s walls.
6) NORTHEAST QUADRANT OF THE
ZONA COLONIAL
Las Ruinas del Hospital
San Nicolás de Bari (Ruins
of the Hospital de San Nicolás
de Bari—The first European hospital
in the New World, the Hospital San
Nicolás de Bari was constructed
on the south side of Calle Hostos
between Las Mercedes and Gregorio
Luperón streets from 1533-1556,
though there was a smaller wooden
hospital with six beds on the site
shortly after Ovando relocated the
city from the east bank to the west
bank of the Río Ozama in 1502,
and a second hospital of stone that
replaced it circa 1512-1519. The hospital
had room for 50-60 patients at a time.
San Nicolás de Bari was still
serving as a hospital until the beginning
of the 20th century, when it was declared
structurally unsafe. Most of the walls
were torn down between 1912 and 1921
to make room for the construction
of the Iglesia Nuestra Señora
de Altagracia. The elegant little
chapel called La Concepción
that graced the hospital’s church
since the 1540s, was saved, however,
and has been incorporated into the
stone walls of the new church (see
below). Today the ruins of the hospital
are popular as a site for wedding
photos, receptions, conference dinner
parties, and the like, and for filming
ads and period films. There are no
current plans to refurbish the Hospital
of St. Nicolás de Bari. Instead,
the beautiful ruins have been stabilized
and are maintained by the city’s
team of professional engineers and
architects so that they do not deteriorate
any further.
Iglesia de
Nuestra Señora de Altagracia
(Our Lady of High Grace Church)
Although her real
home is the Basilica in Higüey,
the Virgin of Altagracia, the patroness
of the Dominican Republic, also has
a home here in the capital on the
southeast corner of Calle las Mercedes
and Calle Hostos. Inaugurated in 1922,
the building was sponsored by the
Vicini family. Protected within the
walls at the northeastern corner of
the modern-era church is the 1540’s
Mudejar-Gothic-style red-brick Capilla
de la Concepción (Conception
Chapel), part of the original church
that serviced the Hospitl San Nicolás
de Bari. When the Virgin of High Grace
is carried in procession on her feast
day (January 21), she rides on a magnificent
plateresque throne that was donated
by Trujillo, as was the church’s
organ; unfortunately, the organ no
longer functions. Across Hostos street
is the city’s former Police
Palace, which Trujillo donated in
1956 to serve as the offices and residence
for the church’s priests.
Ruinas del
Monasterio de San Francisco de Asís
(Ruins of the St. Francis of Assisi
Monastery)
The Dominicans and
the Franciscans were the two principal
orders of friars in early Santo Domingo.
The Franciscans sided with the wealthy
Spanish encomenderos against the Dominicans
in their fight to abolish the encomienda
system. They built a magnificent church,
monastery—the first monastery
in the New World--and cloistered gardens
complex on top of a ridge at the highest
point of the entire Zona Colonial,
between Duarte and Hostos streets,
at the top of Emiliano Tejeda Street.
The main part of the complex was completed
from 1544-1556 with Indian and African
slave labor, under the direction of
the master builder Rodrigo de Liendo.
Construction was not rushed--the vaulted
roof was not installed until 1650,
and the official inauguration took
place on October 3, 1664. Actually,
there were a series of three churches
on the site. The ruins we see today
were restored in the second half of
the 18th century and mostly belong
to the third structure, which replaced
the “old church” of stone
and wood that was built circa 1508-1511,
which itself replaced the original
thatched-roof, wooden church built
in 1502. The distinctive plateresque-style
double door on the northeasternmost
part of the building, with its Franciscan
cord and shield of the Franciscan
Order carved into the stone overhead,
dates back to the first half of the
16th century. The remains of the water
wheel and reservoir that fed the city’s
first aqueduct are here (it was a
gravity-fed system that guided water
down to the Plaza Mayor in front of
the Cathedral). Both Bartolomé
Colón, Christopher Columbus’s
oldest brother, who is considered
to be the original founder of Santo
Domingo, and the conquistador Alonso
de Ojeda were buried at the San Franciscan
complex. Ojeda requested burial “where
parishioners would walk over his body,”
though there is debate over just where
on the grounds he was interred. The
famous Cacique Enriquillo, who led
a successful rebellion against the
Spaniards from 1519 until 1534, was
educated here as a boy. The Franciscans
were ordered to leave in 1795, at
which time the buildings began to
decline. During the Haitian Occupation,
from 1822-1844, the complex served
as a “quarry” for stone
building blocks. From 1885 until the
1930s, the monastery served as an
insane asylum founded by Padre Billini,
and it also served to house artists
who fled Spain during the Spanish
Civil War and World War II. Its grounds
served as a cemetery. Today the ruins
provide a dramatic backdrop for concerts,
wedding receptions, and elegant dinner
parties. In July of 2002, the media
announced that Agencia Española
de Cooperacion Internacional, the
Spanish foundation that has helped
so much to refurbish the Zona Colonial,
would donate RD$7 million to turn
the ruins of the San Franciscan Monastery
complex into an air-conditioned auditorium
and Dominican cultural center with
exhibition halls, without compromising
“the architectural splendor”
of the historical monument. Only time
will tell.
Casa de Italia
(House of Italy)
This house on the
southwest corner of Hostos and Salomé
Ureña streets was the first
official home of Pedro Santana, the
Dominican Republic’s first president.
Today it is the Casa de Italia, where
one can take Italian language lessons
and enjoy events that celebrate Italian
culture in Santo Domingo.
Edificio
San Pedro (St. Peter’s Building)
On the northern side
of Calle Mercedes, just west of Hostos
street is the early 16th-century Edificio
San Pedro, which was the home of several
of the Dominican Republic’s
presidents, including Alejandro Wos
y Gil, Cesáreo Emiliano, and
Ulises Heureaux, better known as “Lilís.”
During the Haitian Occupation, French
administrators lived here, adding
fanciful decorative touches. And the
Cuban hero José Martí
was a guest here when he came to visit
with Máximo Gómez. Today
the building, with its fabulous garden
and upper-level terrace, houses a
popular tourist restaurant and bar,
and a variety of business offices.
María
Trinidad Sánchez Park
Just west of the
Edificio San Pedro on Calle Las Mercedes,
where it joins with Calle 19 de Marza,
there is a beautiful little triangular
park dedicated to the woman who made
the first Dominican flag, the flag
that was raised over the Independence
Gate (Gate of the Count) at dawn,
the morning of February 27, 1822.
House of
General Ulises Heureaux
The infamous president/dictator
known as “Lilís”
lived in the house at no. 204 Calle
Las Mercedes. Today it houses the
Dominican Society of Historians. He
also owned the corner houses on Las
Mercedes, where the street is joined
by Calle Luperón and Calle
Duarte,
Museo de
Duarte (Duarte Museum)
On the western side
of Isabel la Católica Street,
between Restauración and Vicente
Duarte Streets, is house no. 308,
the modest family home of the principal
Founding Father of the Dominican Republic,
Juan Pablo Duarte, who was born January
26, 1813. The house was the site of
many clandestine meetings to foster
rebellion against the Haitian government.
It was probably here that María
Trinidad Sánchez sewed the
first Dominican flag that was raised
at dawn on the morning of February
27, 1844. Today the home is a museum
housing photographs, documents, and
other personal possessions of Duarte
and his family.
Iglesia/Fortaleza
de Santa Bárbara (Church/Fortress
of Santa Barbara)
Located between Arzobispo
Meriño and Isabel la Católica
Streets in the northeastern most corner
of the Colonial Zone, high on a hill
in one of the strategically weakest
parts of the ancient city, defense-wise,
is the city’s only combination
church and fortress, an impressive
Gothic and Baroque structure that
reflects the architectural changes
that have been made over time. Santa
Bárbara is the parish where
the stonecutters and masons lived,
alongside the quarry where the stones
were cut to build the Cathedral, Fortaleza
del Ozama, Capilla de los Remedios,
Convento Domínico, Casa de
Colón and other elite houses
of the colonial era. The current Church
of Santa Barbara was built on top
of the quarry site circa 1571, replacing
a nearby structure built of royal
palm. The foremost founder of the
Dominican Republic, Juan Pablo Duarte,
was baptized in the Church of Santa
Barbara in 1813, which still has the
same baptismal font. In the late 17th
century, high on the ridge behind
the church, a “fortlet”
was built with five huge canons. It’s
worth the climb up to it, for there
is a dramatic view of the riverfront
area and the city’s ancient
rooftops from the fort. If you look
west along the ancient walls here
that follow Avenida Mella, you can
see the nearby Fortín San Antón
(Fortlet of St. Anton). The small
plaza in front of it is the Plaza
de los Artesanos (Artisans’
Plaza). This part of the city wall
was the very last to be constructed,
hence is in good condition. It was
double walled, with a protected pathway
for soldiers and cannon to move from
one location to another, as needed.
Casa de Medaliones
(House of the Medallions)
This colonial house
from the 1540s on the west side of
Arzobispo Meriño, no. 358,
just north of Calle Las Mercedes,
has a distinctive facade featuring
double stairs and five large sculpted
medallions. It was constructed just
across from the original site of the
Casa de la Moneda (House of Coins),
where silver coins were minted under
orders of Charles V beginning January
1, 1542. The original colonial building
is believed to be underneath the parking
lot that is across the street from
the Casa de Medaliones.
7) NORTHWEST QUADRANT OF THE
ZONA COLONIAL
Home of Ulises
F. Espaillat
The house at no.
54 General Luperón Street was
once the home of President Ulises
F. Espaillat. General Alejandro Wos
y Gil, who was president of the Dominican
Republic twice, both lived here and
died here. The house was converted
into the offices of a French cable
company, the company that was the
first to connect the Dominican Republic
with Europe. Just down the street,
at no. 101 (on the corner of Calle
Hostos and Luperón), is a house
that was once home to General Gregorio
Luperón.
Fuerte de
La Concepción (Fortress of
the Conception)
This fort at the
corner of Palo Hincado Street and
Avenida Mella was originally built
in 1543 and was restored in the 1970s.
It defended the northwesternmost corner
of the colonial walled city from any
attempted enemy attacks by land. The
fortress also acted to protect the
nearby Puerta del Conde, one of the
principal city gates.
Iglesia y
Convento de Nuestra Señora
de las Mercedes (Our Lady of Mercy
Church and Convent)
The order of Mercedarian
friars was officially established
in Santo Domingo in 1527. They commissioned
Rodrigo de Liendo, the master builder
of the Cathedral and Franciscan Church,
to build their church on Calle Las
Mercedes, between Sánchez and
José Reyes streets, which was
completed 1549-1555. The bell tower
is one of the most beautiful of the
church’s once many architectural
splendors—it has 10 arches,
nine of which are Romanesque and one
Mudejar. In 1635 the church’s
roof crashed down, necessitating the
addition of thick walls to strengthen
the slender Gothic lines of the original
design, but it is still a beautiful
church—be sure to go inside
if the doors are open and take a look
at its elegant baroque altar. Bullfights
were held in front of this church
throughout the mid-17th century. Note
that, until the turn of the 20th century,
the Our Lady of Mercy Church was at
the northwestern edge of the residential
area of Santo Domingo—only gardens,
orchards, and the lepers’ area
lay beyond it. Just behind the church,
on José Reyes Street, is the
Our Lady of Mercy Convent. Its most
famous resident was the Spanish friar
Gabriel Tellez, whose pen name was
Tirso de Molina. He lived here from
1616 to 1618 and later wrote the erotic
novel, Don Juan Tenorio, which was
modeled after one of the judges of
Santo Domingo’s Royal Audiencia,
Francisco Manso de Contreras.
Iglesia San
Lázaro (San Lazaro Church)
Beyond the residential
area of the walled city, up “St.
Lazarus Hill,” as this part
of Santomé Street just north
of Las Mercedes Street is called,
was the San Lázaro Hospital,
a refuge for lepers, and the church
that serviced it. The building dates
from sometime before 1575 and was
rebuilt because of earthquake damage
in 1751. Today it is a Catholic refuge
for the country’s youth and
headquarters of the Movimiento de
Orientación para los Jóvenes
(Movement for Youth Orientation).
8) SOUTHWEST QUADRANT OF THE ZONA
COLONIAL
Fuerte San
Gil (Fort St. Gil)
At the southwesternmost
corner of the Zona Colonial, on the
cliffs above the point where the Ozama
River empties into the Caribbean Sea
(where Palo Hincado Street meets the
Malecón), is a recently reconstructed
16th-century fort. Fort St. Gil was
built to defend both the river entrance
and the Gate of Mercy (see below),
which is one block north on Palo Hincado
Street. For centuries, students gathered
along the coast near the fort to enjoy
the ocean breezes while they studied.
Today it is still a popular gathering
spot for Dominicans and visitors of
all ages. It is especially lively
at night, when food vendors vie to
see who can play merengue the loudest.
Puerta de
Misericordia (Gate of Mercy)
Where Palo Hincado
Street meets Arzobispo Portes Street
is another of the colonial city’s
famous gates, The Puerta de Misericordia,
which was also called Puerta Grande
(Big Gate) or La Savana (The Plains).
Throughout the colonial years, miners
heading for the gold mines of the
Haina River area would have left through
this gate, which was protected by
the nearby Fort St. Gil. Obviously
the fort didn’t provide enough
protection, for it is through this
gate that Drake and his men entered
in 1586. It is also here that Matías
Ramón Mella, one of the country’s
three founding fathers, fired the
blunderbuss shot on February 27, 1844,
that began the Dominican Republic’s
successful revolution for independence
from Haiti. The area in between the
Puerta de Misericordia and Fort San
Gil was called the Plaza del Matadero
(Slaughterhouse Plaza) because cattle
were butchered there.
Hospital
y Capilla de San Andrés (St.
Andrews Hospital & Chapel)
Although founded
circa 1524, construction of the St.
Andrews Hospital on the southeastern
corner of Arzobispo Nouel and Santomé
streets appears to have begun around
1562; the chapel was added 150 later,
around 1710. The hospital was supposed
“to shelter the Indians of those
isles,” but existing reports
say that it had no patients. The buildings
were burned by Drake in 1586, but
later rebuilt. The buildings served
as a correctional institution for
prostitutes, as a priests’ prison,
a rest home for priests, and as a
public prison. Throughout the 16th
and 17th centuries, there was a popular
San Andres Plaza just to the east
of the church where outdoor pageants
and plays were presented. Today, the
chapel is associated with Padre Billini
Hospital on Arzobispo Nouel and Santomé
streets. Be sure to enter one morning
when it’s open to the public
to see its beautiful baroque altarpiece
that was carved out of one solid piece
of mahogany—there is a Christ
figure in the sculpture that is reputed
to have healing powers--and the statue
of the Christ of San Andrés.
Iglesia Nuestra
Señora del Carmen (Our Lady
of Carmen Church)
Circa 1615, on the
southwest corner of Arzobispo Nouel
and Sánchez streets, a group
called the Brotherhood of Remedies
built a small chapel dedicated to
Our Lady of Carmen. The chapel, built
on land donated by the San Andrés
Hospital, was enlarged in 1729, at
which time the entire façade
was refurbished. The early part of
the chapel is made of stone; the later
addition is of brick. The small plaza
in front of the church is the Plazoleta
de la Trinitaria (Little Trinity Plaza),
where Dominican patriots met to plan
the republic’s independence.
In fact, it was in the house across
the street, at Noeul 455, that the
idea for the secret society of Trinitaria
was conceived. The chapel was restored
in 1880 and again in the 1970s. The
chapel’s image of Christ carrying
the cross goes on procession each
year during Holy Week.
Museo Porcelano
(Porcelain Museum)
On the west side
of José Reyes street, just
one house north of Arzobispo Nouel,
is a fabulous mansion that was built
by the Vicini family, owners of many
modern-era sugar mills and plantations
on the island. The mansion, which
has a huge interior fountain and a
quantity of elegant columns, was modeled
after the Alhambra Palace in Granada,
Spain. Today it houses a Porcelain
Museum with precious pieces from all
over the world.
9) INDEPENDENCE PARK & TODAY’S
MAIN ENTRANCE TO THE ZONA COLONIAL
Puerta del
Conde (Count’s Gate)
Located on Palo Hincado
where it meets El Conde Street, the
Puerta del Conde is the main entrance
into the ancient walled city today.
The Puerta del Conde dates from the
17th century, not the 16th like the
rest of the existing city gates, although
there was a gate here earlier. The
Dominican flag was raised here for
the first time at dawn on February
27, 1844, and the Dominican Republic’s
constitution was signed here later
that same afternoon, under the gate’s
archway. The overhead inscription
reads: “It is sweet and decorous
to die for your country.” Formally
uniformed military guards stand at
attention beneath the archway. Both
the Puerta del Conde and the street
El Conde (see below) were named for
Count Peñalba, one of the country’s
governors, who saved Santo Domingo
from the English in May of 1655. The
English squadron, which consisted
of 56 ships and 8,000 men, was commanded
by Robert Venables and General William
Penn; the latter founded the state
of Pennsylvania in the United States.
The Dominican Republics three founding
fathers—Duarte, Sáchez,
and Mella—were buried under
the gate until 1976, when the new
mausoleum was completed to house their
remains.
Calle del
Conde (Conde Street)
El Conde is the principal
east/west artery of the walled city.
It leads from the Puerta del Conde
in Independence Park all the way through
the Colonial Zone, past the Cathedral
to the Victoria Stairs at Calle de
las Damas, down to the Río
Ozama and Port Don Diego. Be sure
to stop and have a Dominican expresso
at El Cafetál, a little coffee
shop famous because it was a hangout
for all the poets, writers, painters,
and other dissidents who left Spain
during the Civil War there and World
War II—it and the other restaurants,
bars, and coffee shops along El Conde
are still popular hangouts for artists
and intellectuals, and for heated
discussions of local politics and
world affairs. El Conde was closed
off to automobile traffic in 1987
and quickly became a popular shopping-meeting-eating-drinking
place for everybody, including Dominicans
and international residents and visitors.
Street vendors line El Conde, the
tables and chairs of small bars and
restaurants spill out onto it, and
there are frequent bazaars and both
formal and impromptu presentations
of all sorts, from music to evangelizing.
It’s a great place for a stroll
at any time of day or night. In fact,
it is such a popular place for strolling
that locals have coined a new Spanish
verb, condear, which means to stroll
El Conde.
Parque Independencia
(Independence Park) and Fortaleza
de la Concepción (La Conception
Fort)
Pass through the
Puerta del Conde and enter the beautifully
landscaped Independence Park, the
most important park in the entire
country. It is laid out in the shape
of a Latin cross, with a compass rose
embedded in the walkway just past
the Puerta del Conde that marks “kilometer
0,” from which all maps of the
country measure their distance—appropriate
because 11 streets begin here at the
park. The small sentry boxes and portal
to the northeast used to open onto
the main road leading to the gold-bearing
Cibao (today the main road to the
Cibao is the recently widened Autopista
Duarte). The park used to have a public
well and, for many years, there was
an amusement park here, then a bullfight
ring. In 1884 it was designated as
Independence Park. There was a beautiful
pavilion in the western end of the
park, on the site where today there
is a national mausoleum, the Altar
de La Patria. The mausoleum is an
impressive white marble altar dedicated
to the republic’s three founding
fathers, with massive Michaelangelesque
statues of them. The mortal remains
of Juan Pablo Duarte, Ramón
Matías Mella, and Francisco
del Rosario Sánchez lie interred
below, in the area marked by an eternal
flame. Like the Cathedral, visitors
to the mausoleum must show respect
here; no one in shorts, mini-skirts
or provocative tops is allowed inside.
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