BAYVIEW HOTEL - PHOTO IDENTIFICATION QUESTIONED

[EXO]

Some time ago, I posted a photograph (see below) on the website which was entitled "BAYVIEW HOTEL". The context of the photograph is that the hotel had been the locale of some of the worst Japanese atrocities of WWII, where murder was made personal.

The photo has gotten around, and I now see a "Then and Now" comparison photograph on the Board "SKYSCRAPER CITY." I will quote the caption of each:

Here's another shot from 1945, just after the Battle of Manila. The burnt out building is the Bayview Hotel, where some atrocities by Japanese soldiers occurred. To the left, you can see a part of Luneta Hotel.

And here we are today (literally..!). Bayview Hotel is gone, and so is Hotel Otani which took over the spot. The white building on the right is the University Club Building (I think.. please correct if I'm wrong), where a penthouse has apparently been added post-war. The two trees to the right corner in the photo above still exist, They're not too visible in the photo below, but a closer inspection shows that they're still there.

Something niggles me. Isn't the infamous "Bayview" of February 1945 now the innocuous midrange "Bayview Park", further down Roxas Blvd.,opposite the former High Commissioner's Residence (Now the US Consulate) ? Could it be possible that the caption on the first photograph is wrong, and that the building on the corner is not the Bayview at all?

If so, what was that building? (Now a parking lot!)

[TheCameraReturns]

I'm not certain if the Bayview was demolished right after the war. The Otani Hotel took over the location, and was there in the 70s and 80s, if you can find a photograph of it, we might be able to find out if it used the Bayview's structure.

In any case, the Otani was demolished early 90s I think. My memory's going bad from old age.

TheCameraReturns

[Hawayano]

Hmm...partly correct there. The Otani Hotel did stand on that empty lot -- it was actually a "reconditioned"-- and rather ugly --renovation of the prewar University Club Building that's in ruins in your old picture.

The original Bayview Hotel is one block down (what's now called) Roxas -- on the other side of UN Avenue. It's original structure has now been incorporated into the new (pinkish granite facade) reincarnation of the Bayview.

And we all know about the atrocities committed by mga Hapon sa huling buwan ng giyera: how they had corralled all the women of Ermita and Malate into that building (among other nearby apartments and hotels) and repeatedly raped and butchered them. Siguro marami pang multo dyan...

[Joe Romero]

I think this picture, sent me by Paul Litton, is the right one. The tipoff are the burn marks on the walls. These I saw made as we were huddling in a burned out beauty shop on the west side of Plaza Ferguson.

We lived at 12 Plaza Ferguson [south]. The Bayview was north and slightly west of us on the other side of the Plaza. The High Commissioners' house was a couple of blocks to the east of us - I think it is now the embassy.

Joe Romero

[EXO]

Jim Litton advises that the photograph has been wrongly titled in 1945, and that it is an image of the University Club, which after the war became the Shellborn Hotel.  

[The Phantom]

I believe the first, and thus the last photo in this thread is mislabeled from 1945.

Those 2 buildings, one still in existence, front on T.M Kalow, sharing the corner with Roxas Blvd.
They are opposite today's Luneta Park and across Roxas Blvd. from the old Elks Club, today's Children Museum.

Down T.M. Kalow east,from those buildings would have been the Luneta theater from the 70's, if you remember.
(And between the buildings pictured, and Luneta Theater, was a prewar building that has been undergoing a total remodel recently, after it was sold to an unsuspecting individual by a group of people with false papers of ownership!)


Joe Romero has a good picture of today's Bayview Hotel, (at it's continual location to the present, the north side of the Hotel bordering on U.N. Ave), taken after the war.
I stayed in the Bayview for 2 weeks in 2001 and explored it's every nook and cranny.

I remember exploring the Bayview in the 70's also, after eating many a great breakfast at "TAZA DE ORO", on the other side of the small park from the Bayview, south, same side of the street.

Did the new complex built off Mabini, which razed many an old building from the post war period, produce any war mementos, such as bombs and shells?
Didn't the new complex belong to Manny P.?

[dmether]