• City of Manila

    The Book Stop: A Roaming Book Haven

    If you have been to Intramuros these past few days, particularly at the area of Plaza Roma, you may have noticed a unique-looking structure in the plaza that is being visited by a number of people. While one may first look at it as some modern art installation, upon closer look, you will realize it is actually something different.This structure is actually a pop-up library known as The Book Stop.

  • City of Manila

    HUB: Make Lab, A New Escolta Landmark

    Escolta is a neighborhood that is already familiar, especially to the regular readers of the Urban Roamer. For the past few years, we have roamed this neighborhood and looked at some of the interesting spots in the area which used to be the city’s financial and commercial center, with some no longer standing today while others manage to survive albeit struggling to find their place in a city constantly endangered by unchecked urbanization. In the past there have been events like monthly Pasyal activities and the Saturday Future Market which were conceived to get people visiting Escolta again. While there was some successes made, they were sadly not enough and…

  • Makati

    Circuit Makati: The Racecourse Becomes A Commerce and Concert Hub

    With the facilities of the Santa Ana Park relocated to Naic, Cavite in 2009, work began on the redevelopment of the old Santa Ana Park property, at least most of the property. Spearheading the redevelopment was Ayala Land which had a vision of transforming the area to become Makati’s next commercial and residential hub. The result was Circuit Makati, a development which spanned 21 hectares of the original racecourse. Work began in 2011 and is still ongoing at this time of writing. Nevertheless, as the work progressed, Circuit Makati slowly began to take shape as new facilities and venues were being built in the area over the years.

  • Makati

    Reminiscing The Santa Ana Park Race Track

    Up until the early 2000s, there were 2 horse racing tracks located within the metropolis: the San Lazaro Hippodrome and the Santa Ana Park. While these places today have somewhat faded into obscurity in the midst of the modern commercial structures that replaced them, they have not been forgotten by generations of horse racing aficionados who grew up watching the races in these venues. Today on the Urban Roamer, we will be reminiscing about one of these places, the race track known as Santa Ana Park.