It’s that morbid time of the year once again. And continuing the tradition I started last year, the Urban Roamer is going to take you once again to some creepy place in the metropolis. Creepy and interesting at the same time.
For this adventure, we are back at Manila’s old cemetery complex. While we visited the Catholic cemetery of La Loma the last time, this time we are at a neighboring cemetery known as the Manila Chinese Cemetery.
Long before Makati’s Ayala Avenue, Manila’s premier street business for any business or commercial establishment would be that one street in Manila’s Binondo district known as Escolta.
From the late 19th century to the 1960’s, Escolta was a thriving street of trade and commerce. At its height in the 1930’s the whole street was lined with elegant buildings from end to end, most of them sporting classy architecture that dominated and beautified Manila’s skyline. One of those buildings that rose during that period was a little building near the corner of Escolta and Calle Soda called the Calvo Building. (or to the Hispanics like the Calvo family who had it built, Edificio Calvo)
I’ve always wanted to write about that 2-kilometer stretch of open space by the seaside of Manila Bay that we all know as the Baywalk. For someone who grew up spending some of my free days along the Manila Bay, I have been witness to the changes the area has seen over the past years and beautiful sunsets that made it a popular attraction and a source of pride as well.
How can one forget the Baywalk during the administration of then Manila Mayor Lito “floral shirt guy” Atienza (1998-2007)? In his efforts to revitalize Manila tourism, he spearheaded the redevelopment of the once-dark Manila Bay side into the Baywalk that we know with brick-tiled floors, beautified promenades, spruced with retail shops and restaurants lined up along the Baywalk illuminated at night with those funky, multi-colored lamps that have been a subject of curiosity and criticism as well. Baywalk soon became a favored nightspot in an area as tourism and business boomed.
Manila, and the Philippines in general, has always been described as a melting pot of eastern and western cultures. Religion has been no exception as with the case of this curious religious item called the Santo Cristo de Longos. Legend tells us that sometime in the 16th century, a deaf-mute Chinese guy was getting water … Read more