AVENIDA RIZAL

The proverbial "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" may have caused the eventual decline of this strip once agrind with bustling commerce.

Imelda Marcos’ original intention was to have a modern mass transit system — Light Rail Transit — to alleviate the gridlocks that paralyzed Manila’s main arteries, especially Rizal Avenue. Cursed with excessive delays, the project lingered for many years; leaving Rizal Avenue virtually impossible to traverse. Thus, many people were unable to continue patronizing the establishments on either side of it.

By the time the Light Rail Transit system was finished and began its regular operations, the fully air-conditioned SM shopping malls had sprouted throughout the metropolitan area and have earned the city shoppers' return visits. Regrettably, many of Rizal Avenue’s emporiums had lost too many of their regular customers; left with no other option but to shut their doors for good.

It took Mayor Lito Atienza’s tireless efforts to once again infuse life into to this area through a series of revitalization projects. From Carriedo Street to Claro M. Recto Avenue, Rizal Avenue has now become a colorful pedestrian’s haven.

Subsequently, more shops reopened to serve the public and all the facades of the buildings along the avenue were repainted. The ornamentations selected by the mayor to adorn the pillars that hold the overhead railway system were inspired by those he had seen during his visit to Spain.


The two new National Bookstore buildings flank Soler Street. I remember the time when I hurriedly finished off a hamburger and a cup of vanilla ice cream bought from a food shop next door to National Bookstore. General MacArthur had returned to Manila for a visit and his motorcade was supposed to pass by at any minute. I ate so fast that I felt nauseous afterwards. My father had to take me home immediately as soon as it was all over.

New Year’s Eve in the afternoon was the time of the year I enjoyed the most in this avenue. There were myriad vendors boisterously hawking various kinds of colorful noisemakers and firecrackers. Except for firecrackers which my mother had forbidden us to fool around with, my father and I would buy as many noisemakers as we could manage to carry for everyone in the household, as well as for cousins and friends in the neighborhood.



Sadly, the movie theaters along this avenue that brightened the night with their glorious neon lights — from Galaxy to Ideal — have ceased to exist. More recently, Avenue Theater, designed by National Artist for Architecture Juan Nakpil was torn down (read Carlos Celdran’s entry about the chance meeting he had with the owner of Avenue Theater who had it demolished).


I enjoyed many movies in Avenue Theater. A favorite, which got me riveted to my seat, was Wait Until Dark with Audrey Hepburn. She played the role of a blind housewife being terrorized by an intruder in her ground floor brownstone apartment.

Also, in this very same building, up in the banquet hall of Avenue Hotel was where my father’s business association held their annual soiree. He took me along on a couple of occasions. The most memorable was the night I sang some Beatle tunes accompanied by the band hired to provide the evening’s musical entertainment; a delightful experience, indeed.


The old Odeon Theater was also demolished and replaced with a shopping mall, which was recently opened for business. It was in this theater I saw the Beatle’s Help, Steve McQueen’s The Great Escape, and Sean Connery’s Goldfinger.

The overhead rail system in front of the now Odeon shopping mall is the new MRT (Recto to Antipolo line) which has an interconnecting walkway with LRT that serves the Rizal Avenue route.

From this corner of Rizal Avenue and Recto (formerly Azcarraga), a couple of blocks to the left was where my father’s office was at Florentino Torres Street; whereas, a couple of blocks down the avenue is Doroteo Jose Street where MIT’s high school division was located. Ironically, when I started high school, not once did I walk over to my father’s office during recess or after school; I was already growing up and thought it uncool for my high school friends to take notice that I was still a papa’s boy. But nonetheless, I still went to the office with him on Saturdays.

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