One of the finest was the Jai Alai stadium, opened in 1940 as a home for the Basque game of the same name and quickly adopted as a playground by the rich and glamorous. Today, little of the old Taft Avenue is left. Grimy and eternally ensnarled in traffic, it is clogged by too many people living in too little space, with many of the old buildings flattened by American or Japanese bombs. And, as of last week, the Jai Alai building was just about gone too. Despite a determined and emotional campaign to save it, the Art Deco edifice was being pulled down to make way for a court building.
Conservationists are livid but powerless.
With the disappearance of the sports center, they say, the Philippine capital has lost one of the few remaining landmarks from a time when the city cherished elegance. The four-story Jai Alai building was the work of noted American architect Welton Becket, a friend of Hollywood celebrities and designer of the homes of such screen legends as James Cagney and Cesar Romero, as well as of Los Angeles airport. The Jai Alai's sleek, cylindrical glass front was said to evoke the velocity of the game, in which pelotaris use curved scoops to hurl a rubber ball at speeds of up to 200 km an hour against three walls of a court. But the building was a lot more than a sports hall. Every night, Manila's socialites would gather in the elegant Sky Room to party and dine.