Some structures barely survive, some sculptures endure, the clock stopped one day at 6:15 and now it doesn't even have hands. The Boulevard of 27 de Febrero is still there, condemned to a cruel form of oblivion
SANTO DOMINGO – There was a time when Santo Domingo aspired to stand still. Not to stop traffic, which was already becoming urgent, chaotic, and impossible, but to stop the gaze and the pace of the pedestrian, of the individual. It was the idea of the city as a human space, a place to inhabit public spaces, rather than a thoroughfare to get from one point to another in a rush.
That moment occurred in the second half of the nineties, when the capital opened its bowels to tunnels, the overpasses traced the second floor and the overpasses promised to facilitate the flow of traffic.
Amidst all the vertigo of modernity in the form of reinforced concrete, multiplied lanes, and speed for cars, this space arrived as a kind of compensatory gesture, or perhaps of lucidity, designed for people.
Thus was born the Boulevard of February 27, designed by the architect Danny Andrés de Jesús Pérez Reynoso, who conceived it as an ambitious urban intervention: an open-air museum, a cultural and commercial corridor in the heart of the central polygon, between Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill avenues.
It cost 68 million pesos at the time and the inauguration was on March 29, 1999. The idea came from Diandino Peña, then Secretary of Public Works, and the president was Leonel Fernández.
Much more than a work
Above the city's longest tunnel, in an unlikely space, a promenade was built with 16 kiosks selling books, crafts, food, and other small businesses. There were areas to sit, to walk, to listen to music. A place where the average citizen, accustomed to simply passing by, could linger.
But above all, there was art. An interesting sculptural ensemble comprised of seven works, created by some of the most important names in contemporary Dominican art: Joaquín Ciprián, Soucy de Pellerano, Said Musa, Bismarck Victoria, Johnny Bonnelly, Luichy Martínez Richiez, and José Ramón Rotellini.
From the original project to the Boulevard of today, only memories remain. (External source).
They were not just decorative pieces, as they were designed to engage with the most hostile environment possible: the constant noise of traffic, vehicle fumes, the relentless sun, and the inexorable urban rush.
Said Musa's ceramics, for example, contributed a narrative and symbolic dimension. His murals, full of figures, colors, and references, offered an interpretation of the Dominican imaginary from both the mythical and the human perspective.
In one of the most talked-about pieces, From the Ciguapa to the Centaur, elements of tradition and fantasy were intertwined in a composition that invited one to stop, to look beyond the surface.
There were also abstract volumes, stylized figures, and explorations in metal and ceramics that transformed the promenade into an open-air gallery. It was a serious, and rare, attempt to integrate contemporary art into the city's daily life, outside of museums or purely cultural squares and spaces.
And at the center of it all, rising in an almost improbable gesture, was the clock. Crowning the iron tower nearly 30 meters high, forged by José Ignacio Morales, known as “El Artístico”.
The boulevard tower, which also included pieces in copper and other metals, was assembled with that mixture of technique and sensitivity that characterized Morales' work, and his clock was not an accessory, it was a kind of statement, which for a time marked the time, even with music, and in a way was the symbolic heartbeat of the place.
The boulevard came alive
It had people walking in a space where no one imagined they would. It had musicians, encounters, conversations. It had open kiosks, lights, activity. It had the rare quality of making the city look at itself, even if only for a moment.
It was so successful that it even had its own structure. A board of trustees was created to manage it, and at one point it was headed by the communicator Yaqui Núñez del Risco, a key figure in Dominican cultural life.
There was planning, enthusiasm, and aspirations to sustain something that couldn't survive on design alone. But cities aren't sustained by good intentions, and public projects even less so, especially when there's a change in government administration.
Over time, and not as slowly as one might think, the boulevard began to empty out. As the new millennium progressed, the kiosks began to close and the cultural program dwindled.
The board of trustees ceased to operate with the same force, eventually disappearing in practice, and responsibility was dispersed among institutions without any of them assuming sustained maintenance. When someone remembers, they get rid of it.
Then it entered limbo. A space where the works weren't dismantled, but neither were they cared for. It continued and still exists, but it ceased to matter.
The sculptures began to deteriorate. Not all of them were designed to withstand decades of exposure to the elements in such a harsh environment. The ceramics cracked, the metals rusted, and some pieces were vandalized—pieces of metal ripped off for two pesos, probably to escape reality.
The clock, that monumental gesture meant to mark the city's time, stopped working. The clockwork mechanism was stolen, leaving a space for a time for someone homeless. That once imposing presence became ghostly, though for a while it served as a refuge for the homeless.
Today, the boulevard is still there
Thousands of vehicles pass by it every day, over it, around it. The city keeps flowing, faster than ever, with more vehicles than ever, and that space that was once meant to be lived in remains in a kind of suspension.
The bougainvillea survives, stoic, whimsical, as if unaware of the abandonment. The structure survives, but the idea is lost.
Because the 27 de Febrero Boulevard, far from being a mistake, was perhaps an excess of ambition in a context that wasn't prepared to support it. Delicate art in a hostile environment, pedestrian space amidst six lanes, and cultural life without a public policy to support it over time.
But it was also something simpler and more serious from the taxpayers' point of view: it was a project that lacked continuity from the government. Like so many others, as if to keep things interesting.
In 2009, the District Council took it over, following a complaint from Listín Diario, according to the same newspaper archives which reveal repeated complaints since 2011, which were reiterated in 2015, 2016, 2018, 2020, 2025
