Cheyenne Suarez

Retracing Jose Rizal's steps in New York City

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ABS-CBN Lifestyle

<div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px;display:block" width="960"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1788148645850Rizal-NY-23rd-Street.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">At 23rd Street in New York. The hotel where Jose Rizal stayed would have been where the building on the right stands. <em style="text-align:left">Photo from the author</em></span></span></span></div><p>Our high school teachers were right all along even if we didn&#x27;t believe them: the man, Jose Rizal, was very cool. On top of his many accomplishments — novelist, ophthalmologist, propagandist, polyglot — he was a Pinoy travel blogger way before that was a thing. In his twenties (a Gen Z in today&#x27;s reckoning), he experienced the world in ways that were truly ahead of his time.</p><p>About 138 years before <a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/sports/othersports/2026/8/29/pinoy-fans-flock-to-fifth-avenue-for-alex-eala-meet-and-greet-in-new-york-0645">Eala Mania hit New York</a>, the man who would become the national hero of the Philippines arrived in this city and stayed for three days before boarding a ship bound for England. What did he see and experience? We get to tag along with him thanks to clues he left in his diary and letters to his friends and family.</p><p>In 1888, Rizal embarked on his second trip to Europe. On his first trip he took a westward route, crossing the Indian Ocean, going through the Suez Canal, and into the Mediterranean. </p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/ancx/culture/spotlight/12/30/19/how-rizals-life-in-europe-and-friendship-with-a-czech-scholar-changed-a-nations-fate">How Rizal&#x27;s life in Europe and friendship with a Czech scholar changed a nation&#x27;s fate</a></div><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/lifestyle/people-culture-events/2025/12/30/jose-and-i-would-ve-been-friends-exploring-the-human-side-of-our-national-hero-1129">Jose and I would&#x27;ve been friends: exploring the human side of our national hero</a></div><p>This time he took an eastward one, crossing the Pacific Ocean, through the United States, then making a trans-Atlantic crossing. Without meaning to, he demonstrated that the world indeed is round by reaching the other side of the world both ways. One wonders if he had read and was inspired by Jules Verne&#x27;s &quot;Around the World in 80 Days&quot; in which the protagonist, Phineas Fogg, took the same route.</p><p>His journey took him first to Hong Kong then to Yokohama, Japan, where he boarded a ship named the Belgic to San Francisco. From there, he took a ferry to Oakland where he embarked on a transcontinental train ride on which he saw firsthand the American wild west on his way to New York. </p><p>He wrote several entries in his diary that give us vignettes of the land through which he travelled: &quot;Vast sandy deserts with stunted plants, devoid of trees or shrubs. Uninhabited. Solitudes. Bare hills. Sandy stretches. A vast expanse of land; some blue mountains are visible. It is a fine day. It is hot, and there is still snow on the peaks of certain mountains.&quot;</p><p>After seven days crossing America, Rizal finally arrived in New York City and he recorded this in his diary: &quot;Our great transcontinental journey ended on Sunday, May 13, at 11:10 in the morning. Before that, we passed through several tunnel-like arches. The Art Age, 75 W. 23rd Street.&quot;</p><p>After dramatic and descriptive entries about the vast American landscape, this is all he wrote about his first in Gilded Age New York City. However, the rather cryptic mention of the address does pique interest: The Art Age, 75 W. 23 Street.</p><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/overseas/01/10/24/jose-rizals-heroism-remembered-in-new-york">Jose Rizal&#x27;s heroism remembered in New York</a></div><div><a href="https://www.abs-cbn.com/lifestyle/people-culture-events/2026/7/20/musical-rizal-3000-puts-a-futuristic-spin-on-jose-rizal-story-1328">Musical &#x27;Rizal 3000&#x27; puts a futuristic spin on Jose Rizal story</a></div><p>The Art Age was an actual art publication, published by Arthur Turnure, who went on to start Vogue magazine. Presumably, 75 West 23rd Street was where its office was located. Rizal was a bit of an artist himself and it makes sense for him to have an interest in such a publication. But on a Sunday?</p><p>A visit to that address today will reveal that it has been incorporated into a larger address, 71 West 23rd Street – where Masonic Hall, the headquarters of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, stands today. This would probably cause any Rizal enthusiast&#x27;s jaw to drop in stupefaction: the national hero was a Freemason himself, with the symbolic name Dimasalang (Untouchable). </p><p>He made no mention of it but he may have visited this Masonic Lodge which already existed at that same address during his New York stay. In a letter he later wrote to his friend, Mariano Ponce, Rizal mentioned that he went to see relics of George Washington, but did not specify exactly where: &quot;I was in New York, a big city. But there everything is new. I visited some relics of Washington, the great man whom I believe has no second in this century.&quot; </p><p>George Washington was a Freemason and this particular Masonic Lodge certainly had such memorials or relics of his, <a href="https://www.gwbible.org/">including the Bible used for his first presidential inauguration, which this Lodge owns</a>. All this, plus the fact that Rizal stayed next door, makes it almost certain that he visited.</p><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px;display:block" width="960"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1788148468834Rizal-NY-71-West-23rd-St.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">Present day site of 75 W. 23rd St.<em> Photo from the author </em></span></span></span></div><p>Rizal stayed at the Fifth Avenue Hotel on the same block, which is right in the middle of what is known today as the Flatiron district. This hotel was as posh as its name suggested. It was a storied institution, a venue for high society gatherings, and lodging for notable guests. </p><p>The Fifth Avenue Hotel, as Rizal knew it, closed and was demolished in 1908. Today, that building is a designated landmark building known as 200 Fifth Avenue. If you want an idea of what the hotel may have looked like and get a feel for how it functioned as a posh social venue, the show &quot;The Gilded Age&quot; depicted it in its second episode of season one.</p><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:960px;display:block" width="960"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1788148541249Rizal-NY-200-Fifth Avenue.jpg" style="width:960px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" width="960"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">200 Fifth Avenue, the former site of the Fifth Avenue Hotel. <em>Photo from the author</em></span></span></span>His hotel overlooked Madison Square Park which is right across the street. Rizal could not have imagined that a hundred years in the future, on every first Sunday in June, the New York Philippine Independence Day Parade would terminate here with a grand street fair and festival where Filipino culture and food are served in vast quantities. </div><p>Not many structures from 1888 survived intact, but if Rizal had walked over to this park he would have seen this statue of William Seward, governor of New York and Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State, which was installed in 1873 and is still there today.</p><div><span class="fr-img-caption fr-fic fr-dib" style="width:633px;display:block"><span class="fr-img-wrap"><img src="https://od2-image-api.abs-cbn.com/prod/editorImage/1788150542500Untitled-2.jpg" style="width:633px" class="fr-fic fr-dib" alt="The statue of William Seward at Madison Square Park, installed in 1873. Photo from the author"/><span class="fr-inner" style="text-align:left">The statue of William Seward at Madison Square Park, installed in 1873. <em>Photo from the author </em></span></span></span></div><p>On the morning of Wednesday, May 16, Rizal had to catch his ship to Liverpool, England. The outbound ships section of the New York Times that day listed his ship, the SS City of Rome, as scheduled to depart at 9 a.m. </p><p>The ship was docked on the Hudson River at Pier 37, which was on Charlton Street, around 25 blocks away. To get there from the Fifth Avenue Hotel, Rizal may have just splurged on a carriage ride, which would have cost around $1.</p><p>He wrote: &quot;We left New York on May 16, 1888. A crowd at the dock: first-class passengers separated from second-class at the entrance. At nine o&#x27;clock sharp, the bell rang for visitors to leave. At half-past nine, a beautiful sight at the dock: handkerchiefs waving amidst hat ribbons and flowers of red and other colors.&quot;</p><p>On the way out of New York Harbor, he recorded seeing the engineering marvel that was the Brooklyn Bridge, which was just completed five years before. He also saw the Statue of Liberty, assembled and dedicated in 1886, which he described in his letter to Mariano Ponce as &quot;rising majestically on the island. A magnificent sight.&quot;</p><p>Having seen America, what thoughts did Rizal have about it? He wrote the following in his letter to Ponce: &quot;I visited the largest cities of America with their big buildings, electric lights, and magnificent conceptions. Undoubtedly America is a great country, but it still has many defects.&quot;</p><p>Rizal may very well have been the only Filipino in this great city during his short visit. Many Americans may not even have heard of the Philippines in those days. Imagine his jaw dropping if he saw the multitudes of his countrymen at the 2026 US Open cheering for a daughter of the Philippines, making her country proud.</p>

<p>About 138 years before Eala Mania hit New York, the man who would become the national hero of the Philippines arrived in this city and stayed for three days before boarding a ship bound for England. </p>

About 138 years before Eala Mania hit New York, the man who would become the national hero of the Philippines arrived in this city and stayed for three days before boarding a ship bound for England.

Retracing Jose Rizal's steps in New York City

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Retracing Jose Rizal's steps in New York City

ABS-CBN Lifestyle,

Arvin Concepcion

Published August 31, 2026 12:30 PM PHT

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