Finally, something will be done to truly transform the San Pedro de Macorís malecón.
- Thread starter NALs
- Start date
San Pedro de Macorís Malecón
It needs it. It was a place to party on weekends but no beach at all. Even the weekend partying was not overly eventful, but of course I was never there at 10pm.
I like the updated look. Not sure what it's like these days but weekends 20 years ago it was a jammed packed, crazy loud competing speakers, kind of place. It was near impossible to drive your car down the streets. It was pretty tame (dead) last time I went down 5 years ago but it was early. Someone (city?) had been trying to clean up a tiny sandy beach just east of there but the garbage (plastics, cups,...) was flowing in when we went. My husband knowing how much I love the water thought I might go swimming. I had zero interest in going in, if the garbage wasn't enough, thoughts of the Macoris River around the corner was another deterrent.
Who is going to chime in with they like it the way it is?
San Pedro is very much a city for its own residents and is not a tourist town, does not have many foreign residents nor is it a city for Dominicans from the capital to have a beach home. Juan Dolio and now Nueva Romana on the Rio Soco are for the capitalenos. The Malecon is used by Dominicans to relax , to buy fast food from the stalls and to play music way into the late night. It is surprising that there are not many large large apartment blocks overlooking the rural malecon over the calm Caribbean and the mouth of the deep river. For that reason I think that it is the citizens of San Pedro to decide what type of redevelopment they would like , if indeed they want any , and not to have a bland redevelopment thrust upon them. There has been a progressive renovation of oldish homes in the area between the central park and the river but this has been done by the owners and it has been done by preserving the character of that part of San Pedro. Even if the shanty buildings on the Malecon are replaced by rectangular concrete block buildings, I doubt if the character of The Malecon will change much.
The local government completely revamped the Parque Infantil Sonia Reyes at the end of the malecón. It was useable 5 years ago but fell into absolute disrepair quickly.
They spent a fortune on the new baseball signage entering SPM from the east.
They are restoring(?), maybe just renovating/ruining Edificio Morey. It’s my favourite historical building there and has a beautiful turret. Only circa about 1934 or thereabouts but it’s unique and pretty nonetheless.
Whether it’s a flash in the pan or not, there’s no reason why the people of San Pedro don’t deserve to have some pride in their community.
Even if it’s just temporary.
They spent a fortune on the new baseball signage entering SPM from the east.
They are restoring(?), maybe just renovating/ruining Edificio Morey. It’s my favourite historical building there and has a beautiful turret. Only circa about 1934 or thereabouts but it’s unique and pretty nonetheless.
Whether it’s a flash in the pan or not, there’s no reason why the people of San Pedro don’t deserve to have some pride in their community.
Even if it’s just temporary.
You have forgotten to mention the total waste of money on the concrete sign as you leave the Autopista into San Pedro. If I was to spend money in San Pedro it would be to unblock all the underground drains.
Well, as a very cynical person I could easily sit and criticize many of the decisions being made.
It’s a shame that the Howard Johnson hotel is abandoned, vacant, and derelict.
It’s a shame that Playa de los Muertos isn’t functional for the long term.
The concrete signage you mention is what I’m talking about. The one with San Pedro written on concrete baseballs as you enter from the West, not East, my mistake. It was such a huge investment when so many other things are in desperate need of attention.
But Rafa (el alcaldía) is generating pride. The city is cleaner than it used to be. Some of the old buildings are being appreciated. I’m sure his wallet is fat.
My cynical side that knows this country well says in 5 years it will all be vandalized and there will be trash everywhere once again.
The tiny bit of optimism that I have hopes it will last a little longer than that. People in San Pedro and across this country work very hard for very little and in spite of it all, they tend to be much more optimistic than me.
It’s a shame that the Howard Johnson hotel is abandoned, vacant, and derelict.
It’s a shame that Playa de los Muertos isn’t functional for the long term.
The concrete signage you mention is what I’m talking about. The one with San Pedro written on concrete baseballs as you enter from the West, not East, my mistake. It was such a huge investment when so many other things are in desperate need of attention.
But Rafa (el alcaldía) is generating pride. The city is cleaner than it used to be. Some of the old buildings are being appreciated. I’m sure his wallet is fat.
My cynical side that knows this country well says in 5 years it will all be vandalized and there will be trash everywhere once again.
The tiny bit of optimism that I have hopes it will last a little longer than that. People in San Pedro and across this country work very hard for very little and in spite of it all, they tend to be much more optimistic than me.
Next we need is a playa para Ahogarse, a playa Contaminada and a playa De aquí no sales vivo. It will definitely help attracting visitors.
The very first thing that beach needs is a change of name and one of those 3D hashtags with its new name.
They cleaned up Playa de los Muertos and put up a new sign with the name in bold a few years ago. I don’t know what state it’s in at present.
Apparently the name came from the Trujillo era when the bodies of murdered Haitians washed up there, at least that’s what locals say. Who knows?
Send your ideas to @rafaortizdiaz or @alcaldiaspm on Instagram.
They have also sunk a ton of money into a wildlife shelter(?) and hiking spot(?) at a swamp called Laguna Mallen, complete with parking spaces and bathrooms for the influx of tourists that are expected.
It might be the biggest waste of Abinader’s tourism pesos mentioned yet.
Impossible for “murdered Haitians” since most that were killed were the northern border area. San Pedro de Macorís is nowhere near there and that’s basically sugar country.
I find that as much impossible as the numbers of victims quoted by some which tends to increase as time goes on. Plus, all the time new discoveries of human remains are done nationwide and they are always of people buried in colonial times or during the Tainos or as recently what seems to be pre-Taino people. It’s quite something that after all these years they haven’t found at least one burial sites where the DNA points to Haiti. It’s a mystery why thousands of years old remains are found bur not one from less than a hundred years ago.
I find that as much impossible as the numbers of victims quoted by some which tends to increase as time goes on. Plus, all the time new discoveries of human remains are done nationwide and they are always of people buried in colonial times or during the Tainos or as recently what seems to be pre-Taino people. It’s quite something that after all these years they haven’t found at least one burial sites where the DNA points to Haiti. It’s a mystery why thousands of years old remains are found bur not one from less than a hundred years ago.
Last edited:
Playa los Muertos is located in the Río San Juan Municipality of the María Trinidad Sánchez Province, north of the Dominican Republic, its name is due to the fact that in the mid-1800s in that place there was a cemetery, a curious fact is that there are still vestiges of some tombstones and bones. There is a Playa los Muertos in Honduras, in Spain, and another in Mexico.
It is Playa de Muertos (omit los) in Barrio de Muerto, near Faro de Muerto, in San Pedro de Macoris.
It shows up immediately in Google Maps. The beach itself is north and west of the lighthouse, not in Barrio de Muerto. I have driven past it.
Anyway, the SPM malecón has been cleaner in the past 6 months and if the proposed plan rejuvenates it, great. If the styrofoam trash problem each morning isn’t tackled, it won’t look nice for long.
It shows up immediately in Google Maps. The beach itself is north and west of the lighthouse, not in Barrio de Muerto. I have driven past it.
Anyway, the SPM malecón has been cleaner in the past 6 months and if the proposed plan rejuvenates it, great. If the styrofoam trash problem each morning isn’t tackled, it won’t look nice for long.
Actually I doubt if any of the plans would involve Playa de Muertos which is at the easterly end of El Malecon. The other end is where there are all the small take away shops and seats and an ice cream shop and it is here at night Dominicans get together and drink and play loud music. At lunchtime it is still quite busy .This would be the third makeover I have seen and sadly, as Auryn points out, things return to grubby fairly quickly . .The actual shoreline often has a lot of dead trees which get swept down the river and seem to do a left turn with the water flow onto the Malecon foreshore. Some years ago the point of interest was a large cargo boat that missed the entry to the river port and got stuck on the shore of the Malecon..
Opps, wrong Playa, but having said that, there was no massacre of Haitians there and it seems to be a common name for a beach.