Dominican Capital Building Subway

You want some New York in your Caribbean? Try the jackhammering, traffic-snarling mess that will someday be the Dominican Republic’s first subway.

The streets of Santo Domingo are being ripped up because President Leonel Fernandez, who was raised in Manhattan, dreams of turning this city into a “little New York.” The subway project itself is pure New York: Loud, controversial and over budget.

Fernandez has promised the first 9 miles of the Caribbean’s first subway system will be built before his re-election bid next May. Critics say he is wasting a fortune better spent on addressing poverty, hunger and electrical shortages in this nation of 9.2 million.

Mr. Fernandez was brought to New York when he was a boy, part of the wave of Dominicans seeking opportunity during a turbulent time under dictator Rafael Trujillo, his 1961 assassination and a subsequent U.S. invasion.