On a quiet Sunday afternoon, as the sunset on the Pasig River washes the city in gold, Escolta, the former financial district of Manila, can still make you think it’s in its pre-World War II prime. When that sunset casts a glow on the street’s remaining art deco buildings – survivors of the city’s many upheavals – you can understand how this street could have felt like the centre of everything half a century ago.

Once dubbed the ‘Queen of Manila Streets’, Escolta was home to banks, big business, government offices, and the most elegant boutiques this side of the South China Sea. But after World War II, as newer, shinier neighbourhoods sprouted around Metro Manila, Escolta fell into disarray and decay. By the 2010s, it was just another rundown street in a city not short of them. Too far from the centre of business, too out of way from the rest of Manila’s cultural scene: what was Escolta good for?