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Post by EXO on Jul 14, 2008 16:38:54 GMT 8
Got to crack the ice here, and awayyy we go!
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Post by The Phantom on Jul 15, 2008 5:50:04 GMT 8
Great looking picture Paul. It's amazing how many of the prewar government buildings, destroyed in the retaking of Manila in 1945, and rebuilt, are still in service today, in one form or another. I visited a friend, a government lawyer, in her present office and was told it was the old Prewar American Hospital. It is located behind the Manila City Hall in your picture. It's amazing, 3 stories, high ceilings, with large corridors surrounding a courtyard on the ground level, where the patients could sit in the sun, as I imagine. The rooms are large with massive windows and the doorways have windows above the doors, that open to promote air circulation, no air conditioning of course then. It's in a bit of disrepair as old building will be. In the entranceway, there is a plaque noting the date it was repaired and put back into service by U.S. forces.
Colonel Matibag's office is in another building in the Luneta, that is an amazing structure from the past. There are many locations inside Intamuros, the old Spanish walled city, next to the Luneta, that are worthy of a visit, as they still bear witness to World War II. Fort Santiago, the Spanish fort on the Pasig river, once MacArthur's offices, then used by the Japanese to hold political prisoners, and traitors to their cause. The dungeons are there where they would drown prisoners by putting them in certain cells before high tide. Down the street from Fort Santiago is the monument to all the Filipino's killed by the Japanese in 1945 in Intramuros. Further down the same street in San Augustin Church, the only church not destroyed in the destruction of 1945. Inside the grounds you can see remnants of the buildings blown up in 1945. Massive brick structures, only foundations and walls remaining. the massive wall around Intramuros still speak volumes on the War gone by. There is a famous picture of a tank going into Intramuros, in Fort Santiago. that gate is still there to walk through.
I have been trying to talk Karl into going into this area and taking some of his amazing photo's...............The past is still present there.
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