First I lost the Coconut Palace, now this. Sigh.But I knew this day had to happen. After having the rough but hauntingly beautiful "House on Madrid Street" as the second stop of my Chinatown tour for the last five years, I am finally losing it on April 30. During my Chinatown tour last Sunday, the residents of this Dickensian abode informed me that by the next time I do the tour, their house will be leveled to an empty lot by the owners of the property due to it's being structurally unsound.
Such a shame. The house has stood there for more almost a hundred years. The mansion survived earthquakes, typhoons, the Philippine Revolution and World War II, only to tragically meet it's fate as scrap wood on Laon Laan Street.
But what can you do? It's a property rights kind of town. If the government and owners of these properties don't see the value of this authentic structure, then nobody will.
And just like the residents of the house who are fatalistically nonchalant about having nowhere to move to, I too am not going to cry for the house. There are bigger problems I have to think of now. Like where can I find an authentic 19th century structure to visit as the second stop of my Chinatown tour? And where can I find other resident families to adopt and provide birth control for? Ugh.
