ARANETA CITY

Long before it became Araneta City, Cubao was mostly agricultural and residential land until Industrialist J. Amado Araneta purchased 35 hectares of it in 1952, envisioning a modern commercial hub for Cubao before it became a household name, a vision that took physical form in 1960 with the opening of the Araneta Coliseum, the Big Dome, whose 108-meter clear-span dome stood as the largest in Asia until 2001 and went on to host one of the most significant nights in sports history, the 1975 “Thrilla in Manila” between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. Today the Big Dome anchors Araneta City, sitting at the only point in the area where MRT-3 and LRT-2 intersect while drawing steady crowds as one of Quezon City’s oldest and most enduring commercial districts.