At least 58 dead, 160 injured in roof collapse at Dominican Republic
Dozens are dead in the Dominican Republic after a roof of a nightclub collapsed.
Scripps News
NEW YORK — In the northern reaches of Manhattan, the largest Dominican community outside of the Caribbean island nation is in mourning.
Inside the Nueva España restaurant near the corner of 207th Street and Broadway, a small stage was once energized with signature Dominican merengue music of horns, congas and güira, a scraping metal percussion piece. On April 11, it now sat empty with wreaths, flowers and white ribbons reading “Descanse en Paz.” Rest in Peace.
Exactly a week after the Dominican artist Rubby Pérez and his orchestra filled the restaurant on April 4 to celebrate its renovation, the restaurant commemorated his death. Pérez, 69, died earlier this week while performing with his booming live band at the Jet Set nightclub in Santo Domingo when the building’s roof collapsed. More than 200 people have died and hundreds were injured.
“He said, ‘I don’t want to leave, but I have commitments in Santo Domingo,’” Erika Garcia, Nueva España’s manager, recalled Pérez saying, in Spanish. On a rainy morning, the restaurant, made up of a few four-seat tables leading to the stage area, was mostly empty.
The cause of the collapse in Santo Domingo is still under investigation. But the connections of the tragedy to the United States, specifically in New York City, are painfully felt.
New York home to largest Dominican community in United States
Around 40% of Dominicans who live in the U.S. are in New York state, overwhelmingly in New York City, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think-tank. Pérez would have felt at home, except for the freezing rain and towering brick buildings.
In Washington Heights and Inwood — two neighborhoods where the island of Manhattan narrows — generations of Dominicans have called the area home. As the largest Latino group in the five boroughs, Dominican communities exist across the city, though the population is concentrated in Manhattan and the Bronx, located just across the Harlem River.
Garcia, 44, said her friends’ WhatsApp groups have been flooded with constant updates of death tolls and the names of those who died. They’ve included the monied and famous — former professional baseball players and politicians.
They’ve also included regular New Yorkers, like retired Police Det. Emmanuel Gomez. Garcia, who went to the Jet Set club several times to dance to classic Dominican music, said she finally had to put her iPhone down so she could get a break from seeing all the troubling pictures.
“Everybody in the community knows someone there or knows someone affiliated there,” said Djali Brown-Cepeda, a founder of NuevaYorkinos, a popular Instagram account that shares stories of family, migration, loss and gentrification for Latino New Yorkers. “This is a tragedy that has touched all of our lives.”
The group first posted about the Jet Set roof collapse the morning after the tragedy. A grainy video showed one of Pérez’s old televised concerts. The orchestra’s fast rhythm — which draws from African, Spanish and Indigenous instrumentals — blares with backup singers dancing in unison before Pérez swoons in Spanish:
“Naked sings the gray morning/ What will become of my lost love?/ I don’t feel anything if you’re not here/ You’re my source, my bread, my wine.”
‘We get together in moments like this’
NuevaYorkinos has posted updates, including plans for an upcoming party fundraiser, “Unity in Movement.” They also highlighted a large prayer vigil on April 11 in Quisqueya Plaza, just a few blocks from Nueva España. Quisqueya is the Indigenous Taino word for the island of Hispaniola, which now includes the present-day Dominican Republic and Haiti.
Brown-Cepeda, who is from northern Manhattan and has family in the Dominican Republic, said the plaza is known as a source of joy, where people dance to heart-wrenching ballads of bachata artists and upbeat accordions of regional Dominican music. Crowds frequently spill out onto the streets for concerts. Pérez once performed there.
Alejandro Zayas, an organizer of the April 11 vigil, is Puerto Rican, but said he wanted to be there for his “brothers and sisters” who are Dominican. Dominicans are the largest Latino group in New York City, having surpassed Puerto Ricans. Other Latinos, he said, have reached out to show support.
“In New York, we get together in moments like this, and we should be united in every moment,” Zayas, an events director for the United Clergy Coalition, a faith-based group in New York City, said. “This is a community thing. It’s the love.”
Outside of Nueva España, Angelica Cotrina, a retiree originally from Peru, made the sign of the cross and said a prayer in front of a wreath, white ribbons, candles and a picture of Pérez. A flyer promoting his April 4 concert the week before was still posted to the window.
Cotrina, who loved listening to Pérez, said Santo Domingo was like a second home. She called her predominantly Dominican neighborhood of Inwood, “like a family.”
Looking ahead, the effects of the tragedy for Dominicans remain unknown in both the Dominican Republic and the United States. Dominican communities have long remembered past disasters.
“Hemos tenido muchas catástrofes,” Ramona Hernández, a sociologist and director of the Dominican Studies Institute at City College of New York, said. It translates to: “We’ve had many catastrophes.” From hurricanes to earthquakes and American Airlines Flight 587, a daily passenger plane to and from New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and Santo Domingo. In November 2001, Flight 587 crashed shortly after taking off in Queens, killing all 265 people aboard.
The Jet Set roof collapse resonates in the same way, Hernández said, with so many having family connections to the victims. But as of April 11, nearly half of the bodies haven’t been identified. Many others missing are in local Dominican hospitals.
Vigils, fundraisers planned to help Dominican Republic
Communities have held near daily vigils just before Holy Week. Dominican communities, which are heavily Christian, will celebrate the holidays while mourning the Jet Set roof collapse. One Catholic church in Washington Heights has held prayers every day since the collapse.
The New York Mets, who play in Queens, held a moment of silence for the victims, including a former pitcher, Octavio Dotel, 51. Dotel also played for the New York Yankees, who play in the Bronx.
Now, people are figuring out what to do from afar if they can’t donate blood, or diapers to orphaned babies. New York lawmakers are arranging for supplies and logistics to get people home. U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., the first Dominican American elected to Congress, has given daily updates for constituents, including warning of spiking costs for one-way tickets to the Dominican Republic.
New York City Councilmember Carmen De La Rosa, who was born in the Dominican Republic and now represents northern Manhattan, said each day she’s opened her social media to see “missing” flyers and “rest in peace” photos of young people.
“There is an immense sadness” that’s felt in businesses, walking down the street or just talking with people, she said. “Everyone is heartbroken.”
Under a large white tent, hundreds of people packed inside for an evening prayer vigil at Quisqueya Plaza. Countless more stood outside with umbrellas and Dominican flags. A live band, with piano and drums, blared from the tent.Organizers led prayers in Spanish and English. At dusk, they held a moment of silence. For a moment, the only sound was the rain pattering as night neared.
