The heat hits you first. Diesel smoke, damp concrete, and the low, heavy hum of a city moving too fast. Step off the LRT-1 — the Light Rail Transit Line 1, the elevated train that’s been cutting through this part of Manila since the 1980s — at Carriedo, and the crowd swallows you whole. This line alone moves several hundred thousand riders across the city every day, and a good chunk of them funnel through this exact station on their way to Quiapo, Divisoria, or Chinatown, none of them looking up at the old buildings, all of them chasing a clock. This used to be where the money lived. Decades ago, this stretch wasn’t just prosperous — it was the financial heart of the Philippines, nicknamed “the Wall Street of the Philippines” back when the Philippine National Bank ran its very first headquarters out of the Masonic Temple a few blocks down. But capital is restless, and the banks eventually packed up their vaults for the air-conditioned towers of Makati and BGC, leaving these blocks …