Come Valentines or All Saints Day, this part of Manila is bustling with activity. Then again, this particular area is always busy with commercial activity, though not as frantic as the aforementioned occasions. Of course, I am referring here to Manila’s “Flower Market” or the “Bulaklakan ng Maynila,” but known more to locals as “Dangwa:” the name of the passenger bus transport company which used to transport the flowers there which come all the way from the Cordillera highlands in the northern part of the country. While Dangwa no longer seems to ply to and from the city, the memory of these buses carrying the flowers to be sold persist…
-
-
Heritage endangered: the old MERALCO Building at San Marcelino Street, Manila
Last weekend, the Internet and Manila’s heritage community was rocked with a shocking development: the demolition of a heritage structure along San Marcelino Street in Ermita, Manila near Adamson University. The structure in question being the old headquarters of MERALCO, or the Manila Electric Rail and Light Company as it was first known. First established in 1903 from the franchise given by the American government to an American businessman named Charles Swift to operate the city’s planned electric tramways or tranvias, MERALCO established its first offices in San Marcelino 2 years later, serving as a depot of sorts for the tranvias they operate.
-
Rizal Park, Part 7: celebrations and grandstandings at the Quirino Grandstand
Having been elevated into prominence as Manila’s (as well as the country’s) definitive landmark by the American colonial era, it comes as no surprise that Rizal Park a favored spot for parades, athletic events, and special events like the famed Manila Carnival. These events used to be held at what was known as Wallace Field, located east of the Rizal Monument, approximately where the Binhi sculpture & the Heidelberg Fountain are now located. Fast-forward to the year 1946. A year had passed since Manila suffered from utmost destruction brought about the by the war, more particularly during the Battle for Manila. As a a nation was trying to get its…
-
Rizal Park, Part 6: of New Luneta and Kilometer 0
Not many people would realize it, but Rizal Park is one of Manila’s best examples of how much the city has changed in the span of just over a century. Originally, and this was up to the end of the Spanish colonial era, Manila’s bayshore was only up to what is now the gutter of the northbound lane of Roxas Boulevard. So Luneta back then was really near the shore of Manila Bay, not to mention there was no Roxas Boulevard yet. Manila’s expansion would begin during the American colonial period as reclamation work in the 1900’s extended farther Manila’s land area as part of Burnham’s Manila plan, thus expanding…