Then and now: The view from Tonsuya Bridge

Many of us are already familiar with this popular vintage photo of a street scene in Malabon:

Street scene - the view from Tonsuya Bridge, c. mid-1890s to early 1900s

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Most every one recognizes that, with the San Bartolome Church in the background, this must have been the view from Tonsuya Bridge probably in the mid-1890s to early 1900s when electricity was already available in the Philippines.  

Those were the times when the horse-drawn calesa was the primary means of transport around town... the tranvia was still operating from Manila to Malabon (the tranvia was in use until World War II)... houses typically had steep roofs like the original "bahay kubo" (nipa hut) ... and trees were all around the place giving shade and fresh air to residents. 

I couldn't resist the temptation, of course, to "update" this image, by taking a shot from Tonsuya bridge today - although not from the middle of the road like the vintage photo, for obvious reasons.

Street scene - the view from Tonsuya Bridge today.

If the "kutsero" (calesa driver) in the vintage photo had the ability to time-travel from the 1900s to today like Michael J. Fox did in the movie "Back to the Future" - I'm sure he would have been shocked at how immensely this street scene has changed!  

Nothing, it seems, has been left untouched by time and the vicissitudes of man.  Certainly not Tonsuya bridge itself, nor the houses and the means of transport.  Nor the people on the street that animate what would otherwise have been a still-life of our hometown.  

And not even San Bartolome Church - mute witness and would-have-been/could-have-been sentinel of this gracious town's proud heritage, having been in existence itself for nearly four centuries.

In the end, there is only one element in both pictures that has not changed at all, and thankfully, never will in this world's lifetime. 

The only thing that did not change was the sky.

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