The need for quieter spaces

My main afternoon errand was to bring my sister to the airport. And as this is the sort of errand that could be potentially stressful -- what with the ugliness of the drive, and the traffic -- we decided to leave the house early and chill-out at a point not far from the c-5 route we were taking.

We ended up killing some time at the UCC Cafe at the Fort.   Decent brewed coffee + cream + chestnut paste = 200 bucks, good grief. Oh well, it was the 26th and we were willing to spend a little. We just needed a place to write in our notebooks, annotate our books and flip through some magazines

This UCC branch was a favorite place of mine to hang-out about 3-4 years ago when the Fort was still relatively empty. UCC was in a stand-alone structure, tucked at the edge of the Fort w/ only one or two tall buildings near it, and not even a proper parking lot nearby. We could see the McDonalds from just outside the door. We knew back then that such space -- the open fields, the darkness, and yet the smooth roads -- were a temporary phenomenon. So my sitting there that afternoon was already a nostalgia trip: for what the Fort once was (open playground for in-line skaters, skateboarders, runners) to what it's now becoming. 

You fill in the blank as to what the Fort is now becoming. 

There are more than a few plusses from things have changed, in terms of proper establishments in the area (Theodore's, Barcino, Fully Booked, R.O.X, the slew of restaurants in Serendra), but these things would have located outside Fort if such a development wasn't there. What is rare is what I described above: space, darkness, seclusion. We still need those things.