Official

This work, which makes you feel cool and even cold, is "Bikunishi Snow". It is a work depicting the town covered with snow. (Quoted from the National Diet Library Digital Collection Famous Edo Hundred Views Biku Nishiyuki)

The sign of "Yama Whale" on the left side of the screen jumps into your eyes, but "Yama Whale" is boar meat. This sign is thought to be the sign of "Owari-ya", which provided peony pots. Eating meat was banned face-to-face at that time, but it seems to have been overlooked as a type of whale. It was thought to be good for nutrition and tonic, so it was widely eaten by the common people.

On the right side of the screen, there is a sign of "Oyaki Jusanri". At that time, sweet potatoes (sweet potatoes) harvested around Kawagoe were popular, and Kawagoe was located in the place of Jusanri from Edo, and "It's better than chestnuts (Kuri) (Shiri) (Kuri + Shiri = Juri) ", And "Jujuri" came to refer to sweet potatoes. There are a line of baked sweet potato shops that make this round (○ Yaki).

And the important point of "Bikunibashi (Hioka Nanibashi)" is drawn in the center of the screen, but there is currently no bridge with such a name in Chuo-ku. So where was this picture drawn?

I took a modern picture at a similar angle from the place where this picture is said to have been drawn. This is the place where Sotobori-dori St. (Tokyo Road No. 405) and Tokyo Kosoku Doro intersect. It is a viewpoint where you can see the Ginza 1-chome area from Yaesu 2-chome.

Before the Tokyo Kosoku Doro was built, the Kyobashi River was below it. In other words, Hikanibashi was a bridge over the Kyobashi River, where the Kyobashi River and Edo Castle outer moat intersect.

If you take a closer look at "Bikunibashi Snow" again, you can see the stone wall of Edo Castle in the back of the right side of the screen. The tower at the back of the street along the outer moat is considered to be the fire tower that is said to have been near Sukiyabashi.

Higaoka Ama Bridge, which spanned the Kyobashi River, was changed to "Jobe Bridge" by a petition from local residents when it was replaced by a reconstruction project following the Great Kanto Earthquake. "Higaoka Nun" refers to a woman who came to Buddhism, that is, a nun, but in the Edo period, a prostitute who prostitution in the form of a nun appeared and settled near this bridge, It is thought that the bridge name was attached. It means that it was a bridge name with an image that was not very good.

Such a castle bridge disappeared due to the Kyobashi River landfill project from 1954 to 1959. Meanwhile, while walking along the Kyobashi Daikon Riverside Street, I found that the bridge name remained in the form of "Jobebashi Mutual Building". There is no trace of the bridge, but it definitely gives you the confidence that there was a bridge here.

There may be few people who know that there was a river in this area, there was a bridge, and that Hiroshige mentioned it as "one of the places where you can feel the atmosphere in Edo." It's just a place to pass if it's not explained, but it would have been a special place for people in the past.

I was once again reminded that various thoughts are surely in the places I have overlooked so far.

We delivered snow more than 160 years ago from a melting street over 30 ° C.

Photographed location: Near 2-11-1, Yaesu, Chuo-ku