Santo Domingo then and now

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Frank the Tank

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May 12, 2005
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It really is amazing how much the city has grown. I think it probably has reached it's limits. Time to stop sprawling outward and start rehabbing the existing neighborhoods. I would love to see the preservation of the upper middle class homes from the 40s and 50s that are still remaining.
 
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dv8

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Sep 27, 2006
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this is a great article. very nice pictures. a while ago el caribe had a series of photos like that printed in weekend editions of the paper, for several weeks. it was amazing to see early photos of streets like avenida churchil, with two odd cars and cows chewing grass on the side of the road. my, has SD grown since trujillo's times....
 
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Frank the Tank

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The one thing that stands out is the cleanliness, even in the poor barrios. It's a shame that people cannot do the same today.
 
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dv8

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ha! you noted the same thing. this and the fact how elegantly women were dressed. not you take a picture of a dominican barrio and it's a puta parade in terms of clothing...
 
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jeanchris

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Feb 27, 2012
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How dress people as nothing to do with Dominicans, its like this everywhere.

Agreeed for the rest!


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bronzeallspice

bronzeallspice

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Now I see why some would like to see the "era de Trujillo" back.

The streets were immaculate!
 
Xavier_Onassis

Xavier_Onassis

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Aug 6, 2006
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I seriously doubt that SD will cease to grow just because it is "big enough". This did not happen in Mexico City, Madrid, Buenos Aires or Sao Paulo. Capital cities grow because they are where the money is.
 
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Frank the Tank

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JDJones said:
I still remember the first time I came here. Churchill and Lincoln were just beginning of the transition from campo to city.

There were no tall buildings, and downtown had soldiers on every corner, many of them holding Thompson Machine guns.

All the major intersections had roundabouts with statues in the center. I wonder what happened to all of those statues... hmmm.

Gotta wonder what happened to all those machine guns too.
Click to expand...

What year was that?
 
AlterEgo

AlterEgo

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Frank the Tank said:
Wow. The changes you must have seen.
Click to expand...

JD beat me by 5 years, my first trip was 1975. We stayed at the Embajador Hotel, I think it was $25 a night. There were large expanses of grass all along Jimenez Moya [it's not Churchill below 27 de Feb], and there was little, if anything along 27 de Feb. The other side of it was pretty empty. Not much traffic. The only night life entertainment was at the Mauna Loa.

Where the big BanReservas building is at the corner of Jimenez Moya and Jose Contreras, there was a huge open field, someone eventually fenced it in; then Dominicana Airlines built their headquarters there. When they stopped flying, it was vacant for quite awhile, and then BanReservas took it over. Coca Cola, Metaldom and Presidente all seemed to be far away at the edge of the city.

One of these days I'll get ambitious and pull out some old photo albums from the 70s and post some photos.
 
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Frank the Tank

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Would love to see those fotos and hear stories about DR back in the day. How hard was it to fly there then? NY to Miami to SD?

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AlterEgo

AlterEgo

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Frank the Tank said:
Would love to see those fotos and hear stories about DR back in the day. How hard was it to fly there then? NY to Miami to SD?

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Click to expand...

No, Dominicana flew directly from JFK to SDQ, and I think Eastern and American did too. I'm not sure when the other airports were opened, but I'm pretty sure it was the only one at the time.

I know we took a drive to Puerto Plata in 1977-8, and there was NOTHING up there. I mean, we could not find a hotel to stay in. We ended up in the Montemarte, which had been a hotel converted into a boys school and was in the midst of being turned back into a hotel. [We saw it when we were back up there a few years ago, it's closed completely now].

We took a day trip to Sosua, nothing there but an empty beach, no place to get anything to eat or drink.

We went to Punta Cana in 2000 - another pretty deserted place. All the other tourists we met were from Italy. When we went to check in, I asked if they spoke English - "No, Italiano". Habla Espanol? - "No, Italiano". Good thing our son was with us, as he had just returned from living in Italy for college and he got us registered. No place to go and nothing to do, just the beach and the hotel bar on the beach.

Yeah, things have changed. :rolleyes:
 
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