Each city has at least one icon of a hotel that has inextricably become part of that city’s history and heritage. And if there is one hotel in Manila that deserves that iconic tag, there is little doubt (if not none) that such honor will be granted to the so-called “Grand Dame by the Bay”: the Manila Hotel. Perhaps no stronger case can be cited with the intertwined histories of the city and its hotel than a glance at the hotel’s history, a part of what was supposed to be a grander masterplan by American architect Daniel Burnham for Manila in 1905 as a “City Beautiful.” The land where Manila…
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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.
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the Liwasan formerly known as Lawton
There are a few places I can think of as “complex” as Central Manila, which by itself is considered the city’s intersecting point. On one hand, this place is home to two of the city’s iconic landmarks: the Post Office Building and the Metropolitan Theater. On the flipside, it’s one of the most convoluted places in the city, overtowered by flyovers which doesn’t really help relieve the area from unbearable traffic especially during rush hour. Then there is the open, green space straddling between the Post Office and Metropolitan Theater, which is interesting in itself. Back in the Spanish colonial era, this area was once known as part of Plaza…
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A quick Met update
I know it has been a little over than a month since my last visit to the Manila Metropolitan Theater. In normal circumstances, you would not expect much to happen in an on-going rehabilitation effort like this one, considering the time involved in doing this work. But when politics and PR blitz is involved, you can expect things to go a bit faster than expected.