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With the redevelopment around Shibuya Station in recent years, culverts on the Shibuya River (under culverts when sewers were developed for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics) have appeared.
At this time, some people may have heard the word "culvert".
In the first place, culverts are "waterways with lids or groundwater channels", and the counterword is "open culverts"!
Taking a river as an example, the former Shibuya River (upstream from Miyamasubashi) is a culvert, and the Sumida River in Chuo-ku is an open culvert.

According to the 2016 land use ratio (ward area) in “Tokyo Land Use 2016 Tokyo Ward” issued by the Tokyo Metropolitan Urban Development Bureau, the ratio of the area of “water surface” in Chuo-ku was 16.5%, the highest of the 23 wards, followed by Koto-ku of 12.6% and Edogawa-ku of 10.8%.
In Chuo-ku, which can be said to be such a water city, rivers are often bordered by boundaries.

According to Yoshimura and Takayama (2015), there are a total of seven rivers (17th out of 23 wards) on the border of Chuo-ku, of which four culverts (14th out of 23 wards).
There are many rivers in Chuo-ku buried in different times, but among them, the border may be a place where you can easily feel the existence of invisible rivers.
So this time, I focused on the border between Chuo-ku and Chiyoda-ku!

This time, we walked through a part of the alley "Ryukan Shindo" (red line on the map) in the ward of Chuo-ku and Chiyoda-ku, and walked a culvert along the ruins of Ryukangawa. I tried it.
(* The "culvert" in this article is based on a broad sense of culvert, which refers to "where rivers and waterways (or dobs) originally existed, regardless of whether there is a flow of water underground" by Yoshimura and Takayama (2015). )

At the starting point where "Ryukanbashi Oyashi" is written on the map above, the main pillars and bridge girders of Ryukanbashi are preserved.
It is surprising that this is Japan's first reinforced concrete truss bridge built in 1926 (Daisho 15)!

By the way, after seeing the precious bridge, walk along the Ryukan Shindo and follow the traces of the Ryukan River.
(If you want to know a little more about Shindo, please see the article of Senior Correspondent Akira Makibuchi / Sai Sharaku.)
According to Honda (2017), this alley is "a straight line that is not tasteful when viewed on a map", but "When you stand on the alley, you can see slight irregularities and curves."
By changing my eyes and going back and forth during the walk, I was able to actually notice the terrain.

(Shooting the Ryukan Shindo near the site of Imagawa Bridge)

Even now, the Ryukan River has a remnants of the time at intersections and the names of new bridges, but its history goes back to Kandabori, which was excavated in 1691 (Genroku 4).
About 10m wide excavated from outer moat (Hirakawa) in Edo Castle turned around on the way to another moat, Hamacho River, leading to the Kanda River and Sumida River.

At first it was called "Kandabori", "Shiroganebori", "Hatchobori", etc., but later Edo Castle hall receptionist Iue Ryukan was called "Ryukangawa" because he lived at the point of contact between outer moat (Hirakawa) of Edo Castle and this digging.
The Ryukan River has been excavated with the investment of townspeople as a route for transporting raw materials by craftsmen and merchants' products, and it plays a role as a canal as the center of product distribution in Edo City, and Nihonbashi, a merchant town, is also a craftsman town Kanda also flourished very much.

Such moats were no longer used each year, and in 1765, before and after the connection with the Hamacho River, most of them were reclaimed in 1857.
However, in the 1880s, when Kanda Sewage was built by improving sanitation as a countermeasure against damage to cholera, which had spread since the late Edo period, the Ryukan River was dug up and revived as a drainage destination for sewage!
Nevertheless, in 1950, less than 100 years, it became a rubble disposal destination for the war and disappeared again.

(The site of Imagawa Bridge, derived from the last name of Yoshiemon Imagawa, the master who was the representative of the local townspeople at the time of the bridge.)

Like the Sumida River, there is a symbolic river of the town that watches people's lives at all times and flows into Tokyo Bay, while there are rivers, moats and canals that have become invisible due to culverts and landfills.
However, by taking up the Ryukan River this time, the river will be different depending on the times, such as canals (prosperity of Edo), sewage drainage destinations (cholera epidemic, modern sewerage maintenance), and rubble treatment destinations for war disasters (postwar reconstruction). It turned out that it played a role.
Rivers are an important thing for people's lives!

Recently, there has been a growing interest in culverts, and the number of books and websites that are kind to beginners like me and that are naturally interested in.♪
I want to feel the history of the development of Chuo-ku from the field while walking around the culvert!

One of the benefits of culvert walks is that you can encounter alleys where you don't usually have the opportunity to walk.
The Ryukan Shindo introduced this time is one of them, which is rare in the city center where development is progressing, and the atmosphere of Showa remains somewhere.

This time, I visited Tenpurindo, a long-established store founded in 1971 (Showa 46).
It is a shop where regulars (salarymen) working nearby come together at lunch because you can have a delicious tempura set meal without stomach leaning.

(At the time of its founding, lunch was offered for 300 yen. The salaryman's monthly income was 50,000 yen.

I heard that there are people who visit such shops sometimes even after retirement.
So what's so catching the salaryman's stomach?
The answer was in the oil!

Shindo uses cotton nut oil (mejitsuyu) made by squeezing cotton seeds, cotton seeds.
The characteristics of this oil are:
・Higher than oil made from soybeans and natane
・I don't care about the smell of oil (I wonder if it's a tempura shop!)
・It has a light and refreshing finish without stomach leaning
That's right.

How is it different from the tempura you usually eat?...I don't know it unless I actually eat it ^^

(Lunch is one menu of tempura set meal (850 yen including tax))

Pickles and Tentsuyu with grated radish are prepared in advance, and when you sit down, rice (Omori is possible) and shijimi miso soup (replaceable) will come out neatly.
The tempura kitchen is in front of you, and freshly fried is served on a tempura plate in front of you each time.

There are seven tempuras I received this time, and Kakiage, one or two times larger than usual, has a great impact!
However, it is not only big, but also luxuriously contains a lot of shrimp, so it is worth eating.
Kakiage is cut into four by the shop, so it's nice that women can easily eat it.♪

I also had ginger tempura so that I wouldn't catch a summer cold.
I knew for the first time that ginger could be enjoyed even with tempura, so I decided to make it myself next time.♪

It looks very voluminous tempura set meal, but its texture is as light as cotton ^^
And since this doesn't feel oily, I want to ask myself if I really ate tempura.

If you are a salaried worker who works near you, or if you have been near for business, how about an elegant tempura that is kind to your stomach here?
It is also a nice point that there is a stylish service of 50 yen discount on rainy days.♪
It's open on Saturday, so you can stop by when you walk around the culvert!

■Heavenly peas
Address: 1F, Nakatsuyama Building, 4-2-6 Nihonbashi Muromachi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
Business hours 11：00～21：30（LO）
Regular holidays: Sunday

Tokyo Metropolitan Urban Development Bureau “Tokyo Land Use 2016 Tokyo Metropolitan Area” http://www.toshiseibi.metro.tokyo.jp/seisaku/tochi_c/pdf/tochi_5/tochi_all.pdf (viewed on June 26, 2019)
Sou Honda "Tokyo culvert study" (Yosensha, 2017)
Mizubering "From the water without water…How to enjoy "culverts" The 6th "Hamacho River and Ryuka River. In the gaps of the building, beyond the sluice gates." https://misbering.jp/archives/13417 (viewed on June 26, 2019)
Yoshimura, Hideo Takayama, "The culvert maniac!" (Kashiwa Shobo, 2015)