About Ayala Triangle Gardens

Ayala Triangle Gardens is a landscaped urban park of about two hectares at the centre of the Makati Central Business District. It takes its name and shape from the three roads that enclose it: Ayala Avenue to the southwest, Paseo de Roxas to the north-northeast and Makati Avenue to the east-southeast. Operated by Ayala Land, it opened to the public on 19 November 2009. The site has an older history as Nielson Field, the airport inaugurated in July 1937 on the Zóbel de Ayala family's Hacienda de San Pedro de Macati. It served as the main gateway between Manila and the rest of the country, and later the world, and was used by American and then Japanese forces during the Second World War. After the war the airport moved away and the land returned to the Ayalas, who redeveloped it as a commercial district. Two of its runways survive as the lines of Paseo de Roxas and Ayala Avenue. The former control tower and terminal, Nielson Tower, still stands in the gardens; after housing the Filipinas Heritage Library from 1996, it has been a restaurant, Blackbird, since 2014. The gardens hold more than 100 trees, among them rain trees, golden palms and fire trees, and monuments to Ninoy Aquino (1986), Gabriela Silang (1971) and Muhammad Kudarat (1973). The Tower One and Exchange Plaza office complex stands beside the park. From November to January each year the gardens host the Festival of Lights, an evening show of LED lights, lasers and fog set to Filipino and international Christmas music.