Downtown Manila used to be the most beautiful city in Asia. It was bright and colorful. It has the grandest and the biggest cinema houses in Asia that showed the latest Hollywood and Filipino movies.
Beginning the 1920s when talking pictures came to Manila, massive movie theaters were built in Escolta, Avenida, Azcaraga and Quezon Boulevard to entice the Filipino moviegoers to watch the movies on the silver screen. They were designed by well-known Filipino architects like Nakpil and Antonio in Art Deco and Art Moderne fashions.
Some of the were damaged during the Second World War, but were rebuilt, modernized, and made even bigger with new technologies like Cinemascope and Surround Sound.
On a personal note, I used to walk from my university in Espana to Recto, Quiapo, Avenida and Escolta once or twice a month to watch movies during my college years in the early 1980s.
Join me as I take a nostalgic trip to visit the grand cinema houses of Downtown Manila, and the find out what happened to them.
#manilacinema #downtownmanila
