Posted By Gemma
You must have heard of the Mehan Gardens of Manila. It used to be called Jardin Botanico and reputed to be Asia's first botanical garden. Almost eight thousand square meters , it was a delightful preserve of indigenous trees and lush foliage that so impressed American city planner and architect Daniel Burnham, he made it the center of his "Manila, city beautiful" plan.
Strikingly, J.C. Mehan had nothing to do with the Jardin Botanico. He was neither a botanist, forester, nor gardener. In a brief description of his work in the Philippines, published in one of the 1990 issues of the "Bulletin of the American Historical Collection", Mehan is described as a "sanitary engineer".
He came with the invading troops in 1899, fought in the Filipino-American War after which he was appointed head of Manila's transportation service. Ironically, there was no transport system to speak of while that vicious war was still raging. What Mehan had to transport in eight hundred carts was the city's garbage which included horse droppings and dusty rubble from ruined streets.
Mehan was such a capable administrator that two American Governors, Forbes and Taft, considered him indispensable. In 1910, he was appointed to take charge of an event with profound socio political impact, the Manila Carnival.
At the pinnacle of success, Eng. J.C. Mehan made a fatal decision.
He left municipal service to set up a privately-financed garbage disposal outfit which he probably thought would be wildly profitable. Instead, he encountered a lot of difficulties that affected his equanimity; so one fine evening, he was seen wandering about a cemetery in Manila quite delirious.
When J.C. Mehan died in 1914, the efficient service he rendered as Manila's garbage man was duly recognized by renaming the Jardin Botanico, Mehan Gardens . Since then, those fabled eight thousand square meters of forest and gardens have slowly been eaten up by infrastructure projects.
A sprawling city college converted a segment into its campus; then, an ugly Park n'Ride building rose despite protests from advocates of history and the environment. Shrines and monuments for Manila's hero have also claimed vital space; cemented paths are choking surviving trees and shrubs. Could Mehan be turning in his grave?
(gemma601@yahoo.com)
You must have heard of the Mehan Gardens of Manila. It used to be called Jardin Botanico and reputed to be Asia's first botanical garden. Almost eight thousand square meters , it was a delightful preserve of indigenous trees and lush foliage that so impressed American city planner and architect Daniel Burnham, he made it the center of his "Manila, city beautiful" plan.
Strikingly, J.C. Mehan had nothing to do with the Jardin Botanico. He was neither a botanist, forester, nor gardener. In a brief description of his work in the Philippines, published in one of the 1990 issues of the "Bulletin of the American Historical Collection", Mehan is described as a "sanitary engineer".
He came with the invading troops in 1899, fought in the Filipino-American War after which he was appointed head of Manila's transportation service. Ironically, there was no transport system to speak of while that vicious war was still raging. What Mehan had to transport in eight hundred carts was the city's garbage which included horse droppings and dusty rubble from ruined streets.
Mehan was such a capable administrator that two American Governors, Forbes and Taft, considered him indispensable. In 1910, he was appointed to take charge of an event with profound socio political impact, the Manila Carnival.
At the pinnacle of success, Eng. J.C. Mehan made a fatal decision.
He left municipal service to set up a privately-financed garbage disposal outfit which he probably thought would be wildly profitable. Instead, he encountered a lot of difficulties that affected his equanimity; so one fine evening, he was seen wandering about a cemetery in Manila quite delirious.
When J.C. Mehan died in 1914, the efficient service he rendered as Manila's garbage man was duly recognized by renaming the Jardin Botanico, Mehan Gardens . Since then, those fabled eight thousand square meters of forest and gardens have slowly been eaten up by infrastructure projects.
A sprawling city college converted a segment into its campus; then, an ugly Park n'Ride building rose despite protests from advocates of history and the environment. Shrines and monuments for Manila's hero have also claimed vital space; cemented paths are choking surviving trees and shrubs. Could Mehan be turning in his grave?
(gemma601@yahoo.com)
