Muelle de Banco Nacional | Plaza Yuchengco

The City of Manila has a deep history with the streets, and its early beginnings. There are places long forgotten that they’re just a footnote for those who don’t remember their stories. Sometimes a footnote can be significant again when you least expect it due to the drastic change and these streets becomes new again. As part of the urban renewal in Manila, some streets or place that have become nothing more than a random street gets to be rejuvenated that this city has become known for in the past four years since a change in the government. In this little update is all about the Muelle del Bianco Nacional, a street that most past through is alive again.

Muelle del Bianco Nacional gets a major makeover that has been a plan since the last quarter of 2021, and it was quite a process to change a random street into something nobody can imagine that would get a new lease of life thanks to the Manila government in partnership with the current name know as Plaza Yuchengco.

Of course, in keeping the history and heritage of the stretch of that part that can view the Pasig River they still kept the name, but the once stinky and smelly sidewalk is not known as Plaza Yuchengco at the Muell del Bianco Nacional.

The pathways and concrete benches are not just a sidewalk, but a place of foliage, and properly setup to be appreciated by any random local walking along this side of the street. But obviously, the locals are not used to walk along pathways or on the sidewalk preferring to take their feet on the streets side-by-side with larger vehicles that almost don’t fit along the stretch of Muelle del Bianco Nacional.

Going back to the 1950s, this street did not have that side where Plaza Yuchengco is currently what it is today. This particular side was really narrow back in those days, where it used to accommodate a four lane traffic since Escolta was a busy street on the other side of this now narrow road.

There’s a lot of change that happened in the past, which led to this street to become just a random road that used to be stinky. Sometimes a place, where inhumanity of making it a literal public toilet was unbearable if you stumbled or just even witness how it was being used for the reason Pasig River was polluted.

But now, it’s clean and well-secured and also well-maintained as there are station guard house throughout the pathway watching and keeping an eye on the Plaza Yuchengco side, where you’ll find different types of plants and well-constructed concrete benches to take a rest or enjoy the view of either MacArthur or Jones Bridges that’s been busy in the late afternoon.

It is surely a new attraction, the change certainly made this side of Muelle del Bianco Nacional a place to visit or just passing through on your urban travels. With a well-maintained street even if you’re just visiting this is worth the travel just to walk through the pathways and be educated by the plants or flowers they’ve planted in this part of the Plaza Yuchenco. But it’s a good place to just make the visit when you can.