the love parade

This is El Hogar Filipino Building, I first saw this building thru Lawrence Chan's
Free Postal Heritage tour, it tell stories of the past has seen numerous events,
from the American  government to the Philippine Commonwealth,  the 2nd
Philippine Republic to the liberation of the Manila, and finally the independence
in 1946.

we always had a good view of El Hogar atop this building

through Rence's free tour, me and my friends saw and heared of El Hogar for
the first time. its flanked by the First City National Building on the right, and
the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank Building on its rear.
built sometime between 1911-1914, as a wedding present.
and 104 years later is now in danger of demolition.






Manila needs love, so Today I attended my first ever Celdran tour,
called the love parade, with the quote:
"Making the Invisible City Visible again"
the purpose of this love parade is to raise awareness to people
and hopefully for the media to convince the government to declare
this as a national treasure before its too late.

a while ago, at 230pm we showed our love for El Hogar again.(the last 
one was during the laser scanning documentation last Nov 9,2014)

our meeting place was The El Hogar Building, Muella dela Industria, 
Binondo, Manila. I arrive there at 130pm. and met friends from Heritage
Conservation Society, urban Blogger Karl, friends like 
Mr. and Mrs Sy Lian Teng, Ivan, Fung Yu, Isidra, PAULO G. ALCAZAREN,
Chiqui, Lito, Jayr and many more. 

We were asked to bring paper hearts and write down our wishes for 
Manila heritage on each of them. so at exactly 230, we should fill the 
barriers around El Hogar with paper hearts to express our love for 
Manila's crown jewel! but that did not happen.





at 230pm there was a large group, probably the biggest tour group
I have ever seen, at around 200+ participants, local and foreign 






then the Love Parade! tour of Carlos Celdran follows:


then the group walked towards Escolta , first to Poland for our free hopia, then
to  Calvo, then the First United Building on Escolta Street. This project hopes 
to visually articulate a sense of place for Escolta & nearby places like Chinatown
Binondo, Quiapo. and the elegant Beaux-art  El Hogar by the Pasig River. 







It also hopes to focus on specific Escolta heritage buildings like 
First United Building, Regina, Capitol, Calvo Building, among others 
because when visiting Escolta.


Hats off to Mr. and Mrs. Sy Lian Teng, the Escolta community, 
Heritage Conservation Society for their continued efforts in 
revitalizing the neighborhood. 


we know that there are a lot of attractively unusual streets, unique alleyways, 
architectural gems. only a few people are aware of these areas and so we 
got to introduce this to the youth . its sad that every major street in Manila
there are malls & buildings standing  sacrificing an old heritage structure just 
for this development.


Walking tours should be the IN thing now, there is so much to be discovered when
you have a car free day, either walk, or bike your way and explore and enjoy these 
commonly dismissed spots, they are sadly endangered now.

the highlight of the love parade was the guided tour by Carlos Celdran
around Escolta and the museum at First United Building
inside visitors can see Mr. Sy Lian Teng’s possessions, inside you will be
taken a few decades back in time, you can also find information about 
Escolta’s past, present, and future. 



Get to know this neighborhood better in order to save what what’s left of our 
history and invite our government to join this effort and cause before everything
is too late.

thanks for the clear pictures courtesy of my friend JR Niño Patao, almost all of the
images I use here came from him. thanks to Poland Hopia and to my friends
Mr. and Mrs. Sy Lian Teng for a guided tour of their First United Building
Community Museum.

Thank you to ECAI, 98Bcollaboratory, First United Museum, HCS Youth, 
and Corner Tree Cafe.

This is your LOVERBOY Dennis Signing out.