This project takes the Dominican Day Parade as an anchor point to open up the scars and healing history of Dominican immigrants and investigate the spatial negotiation between the parade and the urban context. In the parade, the macro urban context is weaved with the micro body movements. Paraders challenge the market value systems of financial towers by neglecting skyscrapers’ heights and blocking their circulation. Beyond this layer of the power dynamic, zooming into the parade, it also intertwines relationships among storefronts, audience, and parade performers. The intervention dissects those relations and strategically proposes to construct a bridge structure to create a negotiation among those players. On parade day, instead of blocking, the bridge connects the parade and storefronts, removes the ground barricades to enrich the parade experience, and opens up the main circulation path on 42nd street, which is also a transition moment of different building heights. On a regular day, the bridge could be circulated by small vehicles and used as a tourist attraction. Overall, by walking on this elevated platform, performers and the audience would have multiple perspectives of the parade, and the stores would regain their retail areas on the bridge.
