The Naming of Domino Park in Miami

The Naming of Domino Park

Domino Park resides in one of the predominantly Cuban districts of the greater Miami area. It is located on the corner of Calle Ocho and fifteenth-avenue in Little Havana. Domino Park is a gathering place for the men and women of Little Havana. They have congregated in the mini-park for years, challenging each other to domino games. Although players sometimes choose to challenge each other to games of chess, the main staple of the park is dominos. The park received its nickname, Domino Park, for that very reason.

Before the construction of Domino Park, which occurred in 1976, the men of Little Havana played dominos on the corner of fifteenth-avenue. They would sit directly across from the Tower Theater and played well into the night. Originally, the players used shaky tables and a rigged, lighting system.

The city of Miami spent $115,000 to build the park's magnificent architecture. Beth Dunlop, of the Miami Herald, offers the following description of Domino Park in her January 6, 1983, article, "Don't Fence in Domino Park":

There are two barrel-tile-roofed pavilions, really just to give shade from the sun and shelter from the rain, and a matching storage shed, which houses the rest rooms as well. And then there's the main event- tables, set, as the pavilions are, at an angle to the street corner. The arrangement of the tables and pavilions is the key to the park's architecture, and it serves two purposes here, both important: Angling them to open out onto the street corner is essentially Cuban, suggestive of Havana, and it is also an effective way to squeeze a lot of domino players into a tiny space. (C2)

Dunlop's focus on the nostalgic touches inherent within the architecture of the park is particularly important.