Though the madness of land prices suggests the saturation of the central wards, expansion yet seems possible. Open spaces are still to be found, and landowners see the possibility of more intensive land use than is presently the case. Mitsubishi says that if Marunouchi can be made to go the super way, like the Shinjuku Westmouth, it can have ten to twenty times the office space it now has. The Shiodome freight yards, just east of Shimbashi and south of Ginza, where stood the first railway terminus in central Tokyo, will be sold and developed, so that the successor company to the National Railways may ease itself of a bit of its gigantic debt. Something highly advanced, including, like the Ark Hills complex in Minato Ward, residential units, will probably rise. The housing is certain to be for the wealthy. Then there is the expanse of land just south of Tokyo Central Station where the prefectural offices now stand. The prefecture does not, apparently, mean to let commercial developers have it. The thought is rather that it will become a grand convention and “cultural” center.
What is called, usually in English, the “new frontier” remains. It is the waterfront, river and bay, more grandiosely the latter. Claude Lévi-Strauss recently said that he saw the future of Tokyo along the Sumida. When such a person sees something, others start seeing it too. So there are projects for high-rise blocks up and down the river. One is already under construction, on the left bank of the Sumida just opposite the busiest part of Asakusa. It is on land formerly occupied by an Asahi brewery, which Nagai Kafū hated because of its part in making the river unlovely. He would not have liked the replacement either. It is more conspicuous, and not distinguished architecturally. There will be three high buildings and some low ones. The Asahi breweries will have a big beer hall, the most attractive detail of the plans, in one corner.
Arakawa Ward, one of the poorer wards, north of Asakusa and the Sanya “slum,” envisions what it calls a kawanote complex. The expression derives from yamanote. The latter might be rendered “the hilly region,” and “the river region” might do for the former. The projected site for the kawanote is on the inner side of the bend where the Sumida turns south to flow into the bay. About half of it is the Shioiri or Tidewater freight yards, which played such a part (see page 522) in turning Sanya into a “slum.” The rest is athletic fields and a small residential district. The tract is almost four times as large as the reservoir bed on which the Shinjuku Westmouth went up. Plans for the new development are by the internationally famous Tange Kenzō, the man who designed both the old and the new prefectural offices. They are uninteresting, a collection of tubular and cuboid objects. One does not want to think that Tange is losing his touch, but the evidence grows that he might be. His name is omnipresent in plans for the future of the city.
The bay front is the more tempting frontier. Nothing remains in Tokyo of the bay shore of Edo. The woodcut artists of Meiji loved to show steam trains running along the shore en route to Yokohama. Now the east side of the tracks is filled land all the way to Yokohama, where the bay once more comes in sight. Nearly four thousand hectares have been reclaimed from the bay within the bounds of Tokyo. (A hectare is a hundred meters squared, or just under two and a half acres.) There are also ample filled lands in the other two bay-shore prefectures, Chiba and Kanagawa. Yokohama has big plans for putting its filled land to use. They include what will for a while be the highest building in Japan, higher than the Sunshine in Ikebukuro. On the Chiba lands just to the east of the border with Tokyo, in Urayasu, the town in which Tokyo Disneyland is situated, four big hotels have been built and a fifth will follow soon. For advertising purposes the district is called MaihamaTokyo Bay Resort City. The last three words are in English, and the very last one is commonly written in Roman letters. Maihama is a part of Urayasu.
Of Tokyo filled lands, almost half have been put to use, for factories and docks and athletic grounds and the like. Of the remaining two thousand or so hectares, the prefecture has a scheme for 440, of which it owns 320. On not quite a quarter of it a “teleport,” it is said, will be built. By this is meant the ultimate in a communications center, with satellites, etc., at its disposal. There are also to be two dozen high office buildings, condominiums (to accommodate perhaps fifty or sixty thousand people, a very small drop in the Tokyo bucket), and sports and cultural facilities. The land stretches southward from east of Shimbashi to the Shinagawa offing.
Such is the picture of the future that emerges from the drawing boards, and the future that is to an extent already with us. It is a spotty picture, a bit here and a bit there, and a conjectural one. Not all the big projects for doing away with the last frontier will ever be realized. There would be too many of them even if they were not hugely expensive. The teleport has a better chance than most, even though it is estimated to cost more than thirty billion dollars. The prefecture, unless it changes its mind about the whole thing, will need the help of the big companies, which they will be happy to provide.
The picture contains little if anything that offers hope to the middle class, now being driven to the far suburbs and the neighboring prefectures. Nor is it an aesthetically pleasing picture. Such of the filled lands in the bay as have already been built upon can only be described as bleak. One mile of dust and concrete leads to another. An old district of shops and family houses in, say, the wards just north of the palace may have a somewhat random and discursive look to it, the owner of each building having a slightly different notion from all his neighbors as to what a building should be, but at least it has the feel of having grown from something. The newly filled tracts have none.
Center of the new Tokyo—here, at the Shinjuku Westmouth, the new prefectural government buildings are under construction
It is understandable that the most moneyed city of our day should wish to go on being that, and make its plans for the things that money desires, communications and information and the like. To do much of significance about the greatest problem the city faces, its inaccessibility to the less than heavily moneyed, may well be impossible. With regard to the aesthetic problem, questions may at least be asked. Must what results from doing away with the last frontier, the newly reclaimed lands, have the dreariness of its predecessor, the reclaimed lands already built upon? Must the cuboids to be scattered over the city have the cold glossiness of Ark Hills and the dinginess of the danchi, the public-housing complexes? One cannot be optimistic. These are fields in which the Japanese have not shown flair. The jargon that goes with the plans is uninventive and derivative in the extreme. “Postmodern,” already remarked upon, is everywhere. So is “space,” which almost seems to proscribe aesthetic judgments. So often, hearing an object described as an interesting space, one has wished to stand up in the middle of a lecture and say, “Well, yes, I suppose it is an ingenious sort of air container, what with all those pits and bulges; but isn’t it the ugliest thing!”
When the United States was the moneyed country of the world, it created the grandeur of New York. When the maritime countries of western Europe had the money, they put together the low, subdued harmonies of Amsterdam, Paris, and London. Tokyo will have unprecedented concentrations of communication and information, but these do not immediately meet the eye. What will is unlikely to have either grandeur or harmony.
NOTES
p.24“he regained consciousness.” Akutagawa Ryunosuke, in Daitōkyō Hanjōki (A Chronicle of the Prosperity of Tokyo), in two volumes, 1928; Shitamachi (The Low City), 13-14.
31A Dutch observer. Pompe van Meerbevoort, quoted in Tōkyō Hyakunenshi (A History of the Tokyo Century), in six volumes; 1. 1973, 1521-22.
34wife and daughter. Tanizaki Junichirō, Setsuyō Zuihitsu (Osaka Essays), 1935, 229-33. Tanizaki uses the French/English “vaudeville.”
36“Edo townsmen.” Hasegawa Shigure, Kyūbun Nihombashi (Ancient Tidings of Nihombashi), 1935, 232.
43by the solar. The solar or Gregorian calendar was adopted on January 1, 1873. That date corresponded to Decem
ber 3, 1872, under the lunar calendar, and so the remaining days of the lunar year were dropped. Except when otherwise specified, dates through 1872 have been converted to the Gregorian calendar.
46Edo as it was. The Poems of Tanizaki Junichirō, 1977, 348. Composed on August 19, 1962.
48drank himself to death. Hasegawa, Kyūbun Nihombashi, 63.
51“houses are built.” W. E. Griffis, Guide Book of Yedo, 11.
51into the river. John Russell Young, Around the World with General Grant. Two volumes, 1879. II, 597-98. The Enriokwan, or Enryōkan, was the guest house at the Hama Palace.
52Fukuzawa Yukichi. Seiyō Jijō (The Situation in the West), second part, 9. In Fukuzawa Yukichi, Collected Works, II, 1898.
57florid decorations. Tanizaki Junichirō, Yōshō Jidai (My Boyhood), in Collected Works, XXIX, 1959, 181-84. “Sanctuary of the Instincts” is Honnōji. A temple by that name, where occurred perhaps the most famous assassination in Japanese history, that of Oda Nobunaga, is situated in Kyoto. Here the name is, of course, used sportively.
58an interrupted dream. Kitahara Hakushū, in Daitōkyō Hanjōki, Shitamachi, 166-67. Kinoshita Mokutarō was a well-known poet. Eau-de-vie de Dantzick is in Roman letters in the original.
62transfer to Fukagawa. Nagai Kafū, Collected Works, V, 1948, 80-81.
62“Mitsukoshi is today.” Hasegawa, Kyūbun Nihombashi, 14.
64water from embankments. The novelist Kikuchi Kan described a more interesting sort of gaffe in the case of the postal service, begun even before the opening of the railroad. The two characters on the post boxes were misconstrued as “urinal.” Meiji Bummei Kidan (Curious Tales of Meiji Civilization), 1948, 60.
71a school of whitefish. Osanai Kaoru, Okawabata (The Bank of the Big River), 52-53, 55-56. Masao is of course the hero, closely resembling Osanai. Kimitarō is a geisha. Some of her colleagues go for English lessons to the Summer School in Tsukiji, attended by the young Tanizaki. Nakasu was a restaurant and theater district in Nihombashi. Today it lies mostly beneath expressways.
72The River Sumida. Widely published. See, for instance, Nihon no Bungaku (Japanese Literature), XVIII, 1967, 138.
73Mitsui the millionaire. W. E. Griffis, The Mikado’s Empire, 1906 (eleventh edition; first published 1876), 365-66, 370.
74“latrines of later years.” Ishii Kendō, Meiji Jibutsu Kigen (Origin of Things Meiji), Part 2, 1944, 734.
74une laideur Americaine. Pierre Loti, Ouevres Complètes, undated, IV, 473.
75“structural hodge-podge.” Philip Terry, Guide to the Japanese Empire, 1920, 143.
76a famous artist. Kishida Ryūsei, in Daitōkyo Hanjōki, Shitamachi, 360.
78someone would say. Tanizaki, Yōshō Jidai, 91. The Kairakuen, in Nihombashi, was the first Chinese restaurant in Tokyo (see page 113). Gen-chan, son of the proprietor, was a close friend of Tanizaki’s.
78connoisseur of fires and firefighting methods. E. S. Morse, Japan Day by Day, 1936, I, 31-32; I, 133; II, 125-26.
80willows in full leaf. Kubota Mantarō, Collected Works, XII, 1948, 250-51.
81“capital of the Tycoon.” Sir Rutherford Alcock, The Capital of the Tycoon, 1863, I, 115.
84dim in mists. Kubota, Collected Works, XII, 210-11.
89lights were to be discerned. Takahama Kyoshi, in Daitōkyō Hanjōki, Yamanou (The High City), 63-64.
93“cry out in astonishment.” Natsume Sōseki, Gubijinsō (The Poppy), 1908, 255.
93“wait for pretty boys.” Tanizaki, Yōshō Jidai, 73, 75.
95“passed away forever.” Griffis, The Mikado’s Empire, 550.
96“Edo was destroyed.” Tayama Katai, Collected Works, XV, 1974, 539.
102“old one had not been.” Hasegawa, Kyūbun Nihombashi, 117-18.
106“trees and foliage.” Basil Hall Chamberlain and W. B. Mason, Murray’s Handbook: Japan, 1903, 115.
106acting to the end. Cf. Titus Andronicus, II, IV: “Enter Demetrius and Chiron, with Lavinia, ravished; her hands cut off, and her tongue cut out.”
116“erected immediately.” Clara Whitney, Clara’s Diary, 1979, 257.
117“to our honored country.” Ibid., 260-61.
128“chatters on and on.” Quoted in Nishikie Bakumatsu Meiji no Rekishi (A History of Late Edo and Meiji in Woodcuts), X, 1978, 82. I have not been able to trace the source in Ryokuu’s writings.
129behind the grand hall. Kubota, Collected Works, XII, 55-57.
132in vacant lots. Nagai Kafū, Hiyorigeta (Good-weather Footgear), widely published. See, for instance, Nihon no Bungaku (Japanese Literature), XVIII, 1967, 440-41. The Japanese names of the weeds referred to are kayatsurigusa, nekojirashi, oka no mamma, ōbako, and hakobe.
140of her short stories. Higuchi Ichiyō, “Takekurabe” (“Growing Up”), widely published. See, for instance, Nihon no Bungaku (Japanese Literature), V, 1968, 98.
144oscillations of the boats. Morse, Japan Day by Day, I, 129-31.
144hopeless condition spiritually. Whitney, Clara’s Diary, 93-94
146sharp and cold. Nagai Kafū, “The Fox.” Widely published. See, for instance, Collected Works, XII, 94. The Japanese title is “Kitsune.”
154shiver, pleasantly. Tanizaki, Yōshō Jidai, 120-21.
154“out of patience.” Whitney, Clara’s Diary, 277.
155illuminate his face. Morse, Japan Day by Day, 1, 28-29.
155“clean away the decay.” Quoted in Japanese Music and Dance in the Meiji Era, compiled and edited by Komiya Toyotaka. Centenary Culture Council Series, III, 1956, 191-92.
160“what he had left was Yose.” Osanai Kaoru, quoted in the magazine Hon, distributed for advertising purposes by Kodansha, June, 1980.
163busy holiday-makers. Chamberlain and Hall, Murray’s Handbook: Japan, 1891, 85 and 87.
165upset no one. Tanizaki, Yōshō Jidai, 109-10.
172a romantic setting. Quoted by Kubota, Collected Works, XII, 94.
176would not soon forget. Higuchi Ichiyo, “Growing Up.” Widely published. See for instance Nihon no Bungaku, V, 98.
194air of the degenerate. Tayama Katai, in Daitokyo Hanjoki, Shitamachi, 300-3, 304-6. Owai, “excrement,” was the cry of the night-soil draymen as they made their way through the city. “Spectacle Bridge,” Meganebashi, was another name for Yorozuyobashi, also known as Manseibashi, in Kanda. The English word “degenerate” is used.
194today, assembled. Hasegawa, Kyūbun Nihombashi, 163, 165-66.
195affluence in party dress. Ibid., 233. Danna, something like “master” or “head of the house,” is the word rendered “men of affluence.”
205“Nôtre Dame to Paris.” Griffis, The Mikado’s Empire, 378.
206“at such play.” Ibid., 388.
207“a charred waste.” Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, quoted by Kubota Mantarō in Collected Works, XII, 31-32.
208since the earthquake. Ibid., 33-34.
209attributes of a park. Tokyo Annai (A Guide to Tokyo), 1907, II, 448. The area of the park converts to about thirteen and a half acres. The Satake were lords of Kubota, the present Akita.
210that ancient sadness. Nagai Kafū, from Udekurabe (A Test of Skills). Widely published. See for instance Nihon no Bungaku (Japanese Literature), XVIII, 1967, 221.
214old Fukagawa was. Akutagawa, in Daitōkyō Hanjoki, Shitamachi, 3, 30, 46. Regions within “the red line” were under the Edo magistracy. In effect it marked the city limits.
214“semblance of sanctity.” Chamberlain and Hall, Murray’s Handbook: Japan, 1903, 88.
215“at the head of their lists.” Tokyo Annai, 1907, II, 598, 650.
219clams and seaweed. Ibid., II, 745-46.
222a more revolting form. Alcock, The Capi
tal of the Tycoon, I, 111-13. Norimono and kago are two words for “sedan chair.” The Tocado is more properly the Tokaido.
224“from other years.” Osanai Kaoru, in Daitōkyō Hanjoki, Yamanote, 547.
235half of it to ashes. Arishima Ikuma, Ibid., 94, 96.
237“cawing outside the window.” Morse, Japan Day by Day, I, 15.
253“that suggests Valentino.” Kishida Ryūsei, in Daitōkyō Hanjōki, Shitamachi, 362-63.
256it rained. Nagai Kafū, Hanabi (Fireworks). Widely published. See for instance, Kafū Zuihitsu (Kafū’s Essays), III, 1982, 14.
258dwell outside it. Terry, Guide to the Japanese Empire, 133.
276had not yet come. Tanizaki, Setsuyō Zuihitsu, 215-21.
295“avenues and streets.” The Reconstruction of Tokyo, Tokyo, Tokyo Municipal Office, 1933. iv.
296“from our beds.” Quoted in Tōkyō Hyakunenshi (Tokyo Centennial History), Tokyo, Tokyo Prefectural Office, in six volumes, IV, 1972, 1241.
297“field of flowers.” Collected Works, Tokyo, Shinchōsha, II, 1970, 54.
297“mountain of rubble.” Ibid., 55.
300“prayed in silence.” Collected Short Stories, Tokyo, Kōdansha, 1964. 338.
300“fresh autumn wind.” Collected Works, Tokyo. Iwanami Shoten, XIX, 1964, 332.
300“seemed very near.” Collected Works, VIII, 1963, 94.
302“woman out dancing.” Collected Works, XIX, 334.
305“royal death approaches?” Collected Works, XX, 1964, 86.
311“a generous estimate” Collected Works, Tokyo, Chūō Kōron Sha, XXII, 1959, 157-59
312“appearance of health.” Collected Works, XII, 1970, 39.
313“to be beautiful.” Ibid., 33.
320“be your bride.” Shōwa Ryūkōkashi (A History of Shōwa Popular Music), Tokyo, Mainichi Shimbun, 1977, 59.
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