Sunday, August 28, 2016

Where's the haunted house? Taytay's fast disappearing old houses.

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Motorcycling to the old Taytay market to buy stuffs for lunch, out of nowhere I was hit by nostalgia when I saw this ruins. Here once stood one of the beautiful houses in downtown Taytay. It used to have large trees and palms in the yard and the gargoyles standing guard on top of every column of the iron wrought fences gave it a Gothic aura, "Transylvanian" or "Dracula-ish".

The place is now abandoned and the old house torn down and what remains are some walls and the fence. Although I don't know who owned the place and I had never seen the people living in it, which added to its mystery, I felt a certain amount of affinity for the place.  As a child, I often pass by the house and was amazed and a bit scared by the gargoyles. The mosses growing on its adobe walls completed the appearance of a haunted house. I thought it was one.

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I don't know what happened but a few years back, the place was turned into a flea market and then when it did not make money, it was abandoned altogether. Maybe it was sold, or was taken over by the local government because of tax delinquency, etc.  I don't know if the house is historical but the fact that it is a unique house should have aroused people with artistic and cultural inclination in the municipality and local government to save the place because it would have done well if it was converted into the town museum or an art gallery or both. 

M any may not know this but  Taytay, Rizal is famous for its woodworkers skills hence it is known as the sash capital of the country. It's carpentry and sash works is  well known for its quality, but I don't know if this is still true today considering that many woodworking shops have died and few survived and i could only wonder if the manual skills have been passed on. Another things is, with the depletion of hardwood tree in the forests of Rizal and the resulting log ban made lumber scarce and expensive.

What is the best showcase for the woodworking skills of Taytayenos? It's in their old houses. Unfortunately, with age and no maintenance most of these houses are in disrepair while many are torn down to be replaced by concrete houses.

Some of these old houses should be saved for cultural reasons, to showcase the town's woodworking skills, i.e. if there are still houses to be saved. But I guess it all depends on the owners if they are willing to donate to the local government for heritage reasons. But the thing is, every town should have an old house, a haunted one if possible. 

Where is Taytay's?

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