Chuo-ku Tourism Association correspondent blog

　To learn about the history of Tokyo since the Meiji era, especially Chuo-ku (Nihonbashi-ku and Kyobashi-ku), I think that Saiden Stecker's "Tokyo Shitamachi Yamanote (LOW CITY, HIGH CITY)" and "Starting Tokyo (TOKYO RISING)" are good literature (In English, both are combined and published in "Tokyo from Edo to Showa 1867 Paper" is a book.　"I like it" is not just a tasteless and dry history book, but a book full of clear subjects and love for the authors of Edo and Tokyo.

   In particular, "Tokyo Shimomachi Yamanote" is a book filled with Saiden Stecker's love for "Shitamachi" (mainly Nihonbashi Ward and Former Kyobashi Ward). Only the authors who translated the works of The Tale of Genji and Tanizaki in English have a deep and concise description that is far beyond ordinary Japanese. Regarding the previous work, the author himself stated as follows in the brush of "Standing Tokyo".

＞(The previous book) It was a kind of honka to the flow of downtown, which used to be the center of Edo culture, eventually ceased to be the center in any sense.　(03)

The book is elegiac, its emphasis on the part of the city which was ceasing to be any sort of center at all.

　And in the previous book, it is as follows.

＞Of course, the death of the old one is deeply intertwined with the emergence of the new one, and is not so clearly separated. However, the fate that the tradition of Edo followed is solely related to downtown, so things that are not related to downtown must naturally appear in this book. ・... I guess the history of Tokyo can distinguish between what happened because it was the capital and what it experienced as a city. And what I wanted to write was the history that Tokyo had gone through as a town.　　（07）

The departure of the old and the emergence of the new are inextricably entwined, of course.　Yet, because the story of what happened to Edo is so much the story of the Low City, matters in which it was not interested do not figure much. ・・・・・

A distinction may be made between what occurred in the city because it was the capital, and what occurred because it was a city.

　A book written by a landlady (Kie Shiga), who opened a small restaurant on his own from a place where he had no experience in water sales and developed it to be called a famous restaurant ("Ningyocho Saketei Kikuya Prosperity Report" Soshisha; 2001).　

   Shiga initially wanted to open a store along the Metro Hibiya Line (around 1975), and considered several station squares, but said, `` If the flow of people is in a certain direction, it is difficult to welcome the second turn customer. It's difficult to meet, and the town is perfect to return from the station, where the puppets come out at the station, where the puppets come out at once. It would have been a good point of view for an amateur.

　However, Ningyocho used to be one of the best places in Tokyo, but now it is a little difficult to classify it as a "platter".

   Saiden Stecker stated in "Rising Tokyo (Rising Tokyo)" (original book 1990) as follows (translated by Tetsuo Anzai).

＞The Taisho era was a period of great change anyway. The venue will also change significantly. There is a record of investigating the prime location of Tokyo in 1929, but ...

　The names listed in this survey are Ginza, Shinjuku, Ueno, Asakusa, Shibuya, Ningyocho and Kagurazaka, but now there are no people who list Ningyocho and Kagurazaka as representative places in Tokyo.

・・・・・・・

Ningyo-cho was very lively during the Meiji era, but has continued to decline after the earthquake. Most of the old Nihonbashi Ward was once the center of Edo townspeople's culture that both themselves and others recognized, but they all followed the same fate. Even in Ningyocho, it is a great place to explore the features of the old downtown, but in terms of gathering people, it is not comparable to that of Shinjuku. （40）

　Ningyocho was lively in Meiji and has been in decline since the earthquake. So has most of the old Nihombashi Ward, the recognized center of mercantile Edo. Ningyocho is as good a place as any to go in search of the mood and flavor of the old Low City, but it is not the smallest competition with a place like Shinjyuku in the matter of drawing crowds.    (41)

＞The most popular vaudeville in Tokyo was Suehirotei, which was located in Ningyocho, Nihonbashi, but the number of customers gradually decreased, and it will be closed in 1970. Ningyocho still retains some of the remnants of Nihonbashi in the past, but it is no longer a prime place for the past. Unlike the nearby Meijiza, Suehirotei escaped the war. Immediately after the war, it looked as if it was trying to bring back the bustle of the past by beckon the town of Nihonbashi over the entire burning field.　　（153）

　The most popular Yose theater in the city was for a time near the Sumida River in the Ningyocho district of Nihombashi. It closed, for want of a clientele, in 1970.  Ningyocho, in which something of old Nihombashi yet survives, is not the bustling place it once was.

It escaped the bombings, though the Meijiza, to the east, did not. In the years just after the war it seemed to beckon across the waters to western Nihombashi, where big business and finance resided, as if asking it to come home again.

　In addition, Shiga says about the neighborhood of Ningyocho, `` As a place name, if you look at the old map, the names of former Osakacho, Sakaimachi, and the Kansai area are listed, and there is a textile wholesaler in Horidome. Considering that, it is the center of Edo, but I feel that the smell of Kansai is strong. "　I agree with you. I felt that way shortly after walking through Nihonbashi.

   This work was made three years before the Tokyo Olympics in 1961. Because of this title in Shin Toho's production, we rented B-class (or C-class) works that are only worth seeing the sight around Ginza, but when you look at them, surprisingly semi-A-class works. I felt like I had gained a little.

　Teruo Ishii is the director who shot the Abashiri Outer Series in Toei. "I continued to run in the opposite direction to filmmakers with high degree of perfection, and rather built an unexplored position as a reverse master who was completely unrelated to film awards." This work is too convenient to develop the story, but the back music is good and it is a stylish work.

　The reason why real scenery such as Ginza and Shimbashi appears quite a lot is that Shin Toho is lacking funds and is guerrilla-like (hidden shooting?) It seems to be the "result" of having to do street photography, but thanks to that, the sight of Tokyo before the Olympic Games major remodeling is abundantly captured in the shaded monochrome screen.

　Beginning with a shot showing the clock tower of the Hattori Clock Store, the time on the way is also represented by this clock tower. In addition, a bird's-eye view of Miyoshi Bridge, a scene where two people ride a boat on the Tsukiji River. The boat platform is like the Mannenbashi Bridge, where you can see East drama, Shochiku Kaikan, and Shimbashi Enbujo. Near the last, you can see the whole line seat of a cinema shaped like an old Western castle in river’s edge on the Shiodome River.

    Looking at the sign of the bar on the screen, it says "40 yen straight, 50 yen highball" etc.

　Unlike the image of "the top star on the sexy route of Shin Toho", Yoko Mihara is quite charming and has a good feeling (however, regardless of the title, there is no sexy scene in this work). Arakan described it as "a child who is kind and kind to the opposite of his role," and he agrees. Also, Junko Ikeuchi when I was young is beautiful.

 　Ginza is said to have been a favorite city for director Yasujiro Ozu, so it has often appeared in his work.

In   "late spring" (1949), Setsuko Hara goes shopping in Ginza.

In   "Sisters of Sokata" (1950), Kinuyo Tanaka works at a bar in Nishi Ginza.

In   "Wheat Autumn" (1951), Chishu Ryu and Kuniko Miyake's brothers and sisters and Setsuko Hara eat tempura at a small restaurant in Ginza.

In   "Taste of Ochazuke" (1952), Keiko Tsushima goes to see a movie after shopping in Ginza. Also, I was invited by Koji Tsuruta to Ginza Road      　I go to a ramen shop in the back of the ground.

In   "Tokyo Monogatari" (1953), "Hato Bus", which Setsuko Hara rides with Chishu Ryu and Chieko Higashiyama, passes through Ginza and Matsuya Depper.

　　There is a scene that guides you to the rooftop of the remote.

  Tsukishima appears in "Women in the Wind" (1948).　

　It is based on the theme of returning to the battlefield shortly after the war, and is a very serious and dark story for Ozu's work. Ozu himself is said to be a work that he did not always like. The wife, who plays Kinuyo Tanaka, left herself to another man only once to cover her child's illness while her husband had not returned. Then, the husband who returned immediately after hearing the confession from his wife and visiting the place (Tsukishima), but Inuhiko Yomota infers quite a bit about the place ("Tsukishima Monogatari Again" 2007). According to him, behind Tsukishima Daini Elementary School, there are currently an antique furniture store using an empty warehouse, a rehearsal hall for theaters, and a multi-purpose building, and it seems that there is a metropolitan house behind it. And it is said that this area is the only place in Tsukishima that was strongly influenced by post-war customs. There are scenes where a husband played by Shuji Sano sits on the riverbank while looking at Kachidokibashi on his right, but now I can't find any remnants.

  Most of Ozu's works can be viewed on DVD 　except for some of the silent ones. Looking at postwar works over time, you can feel the revival of Japan after the war.

　The elementary and junior high schools I attended were located in the east and west of the Daimaru Department Store in Shinsaibashi, Chuo Ward, Osaka, across Midosuji. Therefore, for me, "Daimaru" is a representative of department stores, and after the war, the opening of the Tokyo store at Yaesu Exit of Tokyo Station was the "(first) advance" to "Tokyo". I was thinking.

    However, in Shigure Hasegawa's "Old Mon Nihonbashi", "There is a noun called Daimaru at the starting point of the most common city. This was just the point of Nihonbashi culture and prosperity at that time, just as pointing to Mitsukoshi kimono shop now, but it was a famous kimono shop of Odozo-zukuri that had risen resolutely in Yotsutsutsuji along Daimon-dori, on the corner opposite Toyu-cho. At one point, the name of the location of Daidenmacho 4-chome Daimaru kimono store was renamed Torikango-cho, and a faithful Gonsuke who had been working for Daimaru for many years was sinned by rewriting the town tag as the importance of the main family. The store was a symbol of the town so much that there was a turmoil. "

    Looking at the "History of Daimaru" on the current "Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores" website, it is as follows.

   The Saiden Stecker "Tokyo Shitamachi Yamanote (LOW CITY, HIGH CITY)" (translated by Tetsuo Anzai) states as follows.

(Road) The influence of trains was even greater. It is a typical example of this, such as Daimaru of a kimono shop. Among the current department stores, it is not uncommon to have developed from a former kimono shop, but Daimaru was one of them, opening in Nihonbashi in the 18th century, and in the middle of the Meiji era it was more prosperous than Mitsukoshi. As Shigure Hasegawa wrote, Daimaru said, "It was the center point of Nihonbashi culture and prosperity at that time, just as it refers to the Mitsukoshi kimono store." However, unlike other stores, Daimaru did not face the train street leading from Ginza to Ueno. Therefore, customers gradually moved away, and at the end of the Meiji era, they had to knock down a store in Tokyo and withdraw to Kansai. I returned to Tokyo after World War II, but this time I set up a store in the station building of Tokyo Station to prevent it from being out of transportation. （73）

"Ginza Makeup" is a work of 1951 (you can see it on You Tube). Among them, the streets of the Tsukiji River before being reclaimed and its neighborhood are beautifully captured.

　The heroine Kinuyo Tanaka is a woman from Ginza, but it's not so gorgeous or young. The setting is to live alone with a boy about 6 years old and rent the second floor of Shimotaya, a teacher of Nagauta in Shintomi-cho.

   Originally, both Ginza and Tsukiji were "islands" surrounded by rivers on all sides. Since Sanjumabori was reclaimed with rubble in the war around 1949, such rivers have been reclaimed one after another, and most of the Tsukiji River has disappeared. In the movie, I walked Harumi-dori St. from Tsukiji to Ginza and near Miharabashi, Kinuyo Tanaka told Yuji Hori, `` This Hen is Sansanbori, and before it was not reclaimed, bars on both sides at night etc. The lights of coffee shops moved to light and it was very beautiful. " Miharabashi also shows Tokyo Onsen, which was under construction at the time.

    Since the defeat of Japan was in April 1952, it was "Occupied Japan" (Occupied Japan).　However, there was no English street display in the movie, and the Hattori Clock Store Building should have been US military PX, but I can't see it. There are no foreign soldiers walking on the street. However, at the Ginza 4-chome intersection, Kinuyo Tanaka told Yuji Hori, "There were stalls on both sides until this time." After the Sanjuma moat landfill, you can see the rubble that has not yet been completely removed.

　In addition, on the screen, you can see the scenery of Tsukiji Kawai at the time, such as the Tower of the Cross at St. Luke Hospital, Irifune Bridge, Akashi Bridge, and Tsukijibashi.