Old Town is Talaris’s oldest district and its most distinctly Filipino one. It lies just north of the river that runs through downtown, set back from the shore, near the foot of the cliff that carries the Civic Plateau and VD Tower. Officially it is Compact Barangay 02 of The JD Strip, a name nobody uses.
Origins
Before the Compact the island had two villages: a fishing village on the coast and a smaller one inland, on higher ground by the river, where the water was fresh and the floods did not reach. The Compact’s labor barracks went up beside the inland village. As the port automated and the new city spread over the reclaimed coast, the fishing families moved inland too, and the village, the barracks, and the newcomers grew together into what is now Old Town (see History of Talaris). The rest of the city grew outward from it. Its distance from the water, once a matter of where the fresh water was, is now one of the reasons people give for living there, since the storm surges that reach the shore stop well short of it.
The district
Old Town is dense and low: tin roofs, narrow alleys, a sari-sari store on every corner, markets, and the small shrines of the animist revival (see Culture of Talaris). Some corners have turned into cafés and bars beside working-class housing that has not changed in forty years. Older residents still speak Cuyonon and Hiligaynon, and the district elects its own members of the Assembly.
Higashi Springs is Old Town’s sento, named for the east, the direction it faces. It has the best view in the city of the waterfall that runs down through VD Tower. A good share of Old Town ends its day there.