Junichirou Tanizaki's "Childhood" is quoted on the bulletin board of "Armi Bridge". Before and after this quoted part, the surrounding landscape is well described.
The armor bridge was built in 1872 (1872). In 1888 (1888), it was replaced by a steel truss bridge, and a streetcar ran on the bridge from the Taisho era to the Showa era. In 1957 (1957), it was replaced with the current one ("Monoshiri Encyclopedia"). Since "Kids" was serialized in the magazine "Bungei Shunju" from April 1955 (April 1955) to March of the following year, it is said that "Aromi Bridge has been aging and removed." It may be before this replacement.
The Tanizaki family moved to Hamacho for a short period of time and moved to Minami Kayabacho.
The explanation version of the armor bridge that quotes "Kids"
I was only a few months in Hamacho's house, and it seems that I had moved to 45 Minami Kayabacho by the fall of 1891. ・・・・・
・・・ ・ I was told when I was a child, saying, "Armor Bridge used to be a handover of armor, and there was no bridge in Asoko," but now a bridge called Kayaba Bridge was built downstream. It is said that the armor bridge was old and removed, so it was returned to the old days when I was not born.
When you come from Koamicho and cross the original armor bridge, there is a Kabuto-cho stock exchange on the right, but the first street on the left is Omote Kayabacho, and the next street in parallel with it is Ura Kayabacho. Was called. ・・・・・・・
Even after coming to Kayabacho, I was always taken by my mother and grandmother to go to the home almost every day. The distance was about the same as the time of Hamacho, about five or six. From Ura Kayabacho, go out Katsumi's Yokocho to Omote Kayabacho, cross the armor bridge, turn left toward Koamicho, and turn right right again to pass through Komeyacho. It was a time when I and my grandmother's legs were about fifteen minutes, and there were no trains or cars, but when I crossed the armor bridge, I had to cross the humanitarian side facing the wide traffic, so I was careful not to be hit by a rickshaw. At that time, the bridge was one step higher than the road surface and had a slope, so the rickshaw running down from the bridge could not stop suddenly due to inertia, which could be unexpectedly dangerous. Armor Bridge is one of the few railway bridges in the city at that time, and I think Shinohashi and Eitai Bridge were still old wooden bridges. I always stopped in the middle of the bridge and looked at the flow of water in the Nihonbashi River, but when I pressed my face on the iron railing and looked at the surface of the water coming under the bridge, it seemed that the bridge would move instead of the water flowing. I also crossed from Kayabacho, and always looked at a building like a fairy tale of Shibusawa's house on the shore of Kabuto-cho upstream with a mysterious feeling. The Nissho Building is now built here, but it was originally a Venice-style corridor and a Gothic Hall of Fame with pillars facing the water, in close contact with the stone cliffs, on the edge of the river. Who was the idea of building such a foreign classical hobby mansion in the middle of Tokyo in the middle of the Meiji era? On the banks of Koamicho on the opposite bank, there are many white walls of the storehouses lined up, and if you turn a little off that nose, it will be Edobashi and Nihonbashi immediately, but only that one section is away from Japan like a stone-plated West landscape painting. However, it was strange that it was not necessarily inconsistent with the surrounding water city, and that the cargo boats, horse-drawn boats, and daruma boats that came up in the previous flow were in harmony like a gondola. ("The first house in Minami Kayabacho"; 73)
We lived at the house in Hama-cho for only a few months, moving to No.45, Minami Kayaba-cho, sometime before the autumn of 1891. ・・・・・・
I remember being told as a child that there had been a ferry-crossing where Yoroibashi bridge then was; now the bridge is gone again, torn down because of dilapidation and replaced with the new Kayababashi bridge further downstream. Thus in a sense we have come full circle, back to what things were like in the old days, before I was born.
Coming from the direction of Koami-cho, at the point where the old Yoroibashi bridge crossed the river, you saw the Kabuto-cho stock exchange on the right. The first road to the left was called Kayaba-cho 'Front Street', while the next, paralleled to it, was 'Back Street'. ・・・・・
Even after the move to Minami Kayaba-cho, I still went almost daily to visit the main house with Mother and Granny. The distance was no more than it had been when we were in Hama-cho ―some five or six blocks. We passed from 'Back' to 'Front' Kayaba-cho vis the Katsumi side street; crossed Yoroibashi bridge and turned left toward Koami-cho; then turned right and passed thorough the rice dealers' district. It took only fifteen
minutes, even for Granny and me. There were as yet no streetcars or automobiles about, but Granny always warned me to be careful not to be hit by a rickshaw as I crossed the wide road beyond Yoroibashi bridge to get to the pavement on the other side.
The bridge was at that time raised somewhat higher than the surface of the road, and sloped down to meet it; and the rikishaws that sped down the slope often found it impossible to make sudden stops, so it could be quite dangerous. Yoroibashi was one of the not-so-numerous steel bridges then in Tokyo, while Shin Ohashi and Eitaibashi bridges were still made of wood. I used to stand in the middle of it and watch the flow of the Nihombashi River. As I pressed my face against the iron railings and gazed down at the surface of the water, it seemed as if it were the bridge and not the river that was moving.
Crossing the bridge from Kayaba-cho, one could see the fantastic Shibusawa mansion rising like a fairly-tale palace on the banks of Kabutocho, further upstream. There, where the Nissho Building now stands, the Gothic-style mansion with its Venetian galleries and pillars stood facing the river, its walls rising from the stony cliff of the small promontory on which it had been built. Whose idea was it, I wonder, to construct such an exotically traditional Western-style residence right in the middle of late nineteenth-century Tokyo? I never tired of gazing at its romantic outlines with a kind of rapture. Across the river on the Koami-cho embankment were lined the white walls of innumerable storehouses. Though the Edobashi and Nihombashi bridges stood just beyond the promontory, this little section of Sitamachi had a foreign air, like some scenic lithograph of Europe. Yet it did not clash with the river and surrounding buildings－in fact, the various old-fashioned barges and lighters that moved up and down the stream past the 'palace' were strangely in harmony with it, like gondolas moving on a Venetian canal・・・ (54)
Explanatory version of the armor handover, the ferry port survived until the armor bridge was built in 1872 (1872). ("Monoshiri Encyclopedia"; 25)
View Kayaba Bridge from Armor Hashigami. In the past, the area around Minamizume of this bridge was called the Kayaba Riverside, and was a place where the Kaya was cut and piled up. Like the origin of today's Kayabacho, the name of the bridge is also derived from this. The current bridge was replaced in 1992 (1992) due to the aging of the old bridge ("Monoshiri Encyclopedia", 25).
View the stock exchange from Nihonbashikoamicho over the armor bridge
In the foreground is the Nisshokan Building, the trees ahead are Kabuto Shrine, and the skyscraper is the Nihonbashi Diamond Building.
