have been saved and scrupulously restored in Meiji Mura, the outdoor museum of Meiji period architecture near Inuyama outside of Nagoya. Again, here is one of those small ironies of history—for Wright’s Mayan-inspired building was actually built not in the Meiji period (1868–1912) but in the succeeding Taisho era.
The post-1968 Imperial Hotel, though now beginning to show its age and look somewhat lackluster against the flood of modern luxury hotels that have swept through Tokyo since 2000, is still regarded by many as one of the city’s best hotels. It is a far cry from the original Imperial Hotel of a mere one hundred rooms. In 1983 an additional unit, the Imperial Tower, was added to the 1970s building, and its first four floors are given over to luxury shops. It also boasts a collection of fine Japanese and international restaurants. The later Imperial Hotel is overpowering in its attempt at grandeur and has the ambience of an international airport terminal striving for recognition.
Just to the north of the Imperial Hotel on Hibiya-dori is the 1963 Nissei-Hibiya Building, which contains the Nissei Theater (Nissei Gekijo) seating 1,334 theater-goers. The theater offers ballet and opera in season and concerts and movies at other times. It provides a showy theater interior with its ceiling flecked with mother-of-pearl, its walls of glass mosaics and lights flashing within the walls and ceiling. Its lobby boasts an Art Deco ceiling and a marble floor, and it is thus as theatrical as some of the entertainment that appears on its stage or screen. Behind the Nissei-Hibiya Building is the Takarazuka Theater on the side street to the left of the Imperial Hotel. The street is now known as Theater Street; its sidewalks have been widened and its roadway narrowed in order to handle the festive crowds attending the theaters along its length. In the period of the United States military occupation of Japan after 1945, this theater served as the Ernie Pyle Theater for American troops, named for the famed World War II correspondent who was killed on Iwo Jima. Restored to civilian control as the Occupation ended, for almost a decade the Ernie Pyle had served as a movie and stage theater, its operation giving an exceedingly large Japanese staff employment that might not otherwise have been available to them in these postwar days.
The theater was eventually returned to Japanese control, and its spectacular music and dance extravaganzas, in which all the parts, male and female, are taken by young women, were resumed after a wartime and postwar hiatus. Aside from its multipurpose stage, there is a hanamichi (flower path) as in Kabuki theaters, which joins the stage at the Gin-bashi, the Silver Bridge. This obviously can bring the performers in closer contact with the audience. The Takarazuka revues are offered in the most lavish of settings and ornate of costumes, and these revues by the theater’s Osaka/Kobe-based company have an immense appeal for adolescent Japanese girls and middle-aged matrons. Their attraction can be attested to by an incident from the war years: when the theater was closed for wartime reasons on March 4, 1944, the crowd was so large and in danger of becoming unruly that the police unsheathed the swords they carried so as to maintain order.
Continuing to the east on the street that runs alongside the Imperial Hotel, one arrives at the International Arcade, which is situated under the overhead railroad right-ofway. The International Arcade extends for one street in either direction as an enclosed market with a variety of goods meant to appeal to tourists: from electronic gear to new and used kimonos to souvenir items of great diversity. (Since the shops are open from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., until 6:00 p.m. on Sundays, and some of the purchases are tax free, there is an added incentive offered to visitors.) To the north and still under the elevated structure are the yakitori stalls that are favored for snacks by both visitors and Tokyo residents.
Following the elevated tracks northwest for a hundred yards leads to Harumi-dori, where on each side of the street are stairs down to the several subway lines that intersect here, the Chiyoda Line, the Toei Mita Line, and the Hibiya Line, while an underground passageway connects the Yurakucho Line.
GETTING THERE
This tour starts at Tokyo Station, which is served by numerous JR train lines, Shinkansen lines, and subway lines. These include the Marunouchi subway line, the JR Yamanote Line, and the JR Chuo and Sobu Lines.
Walking Tour 2
OTEMACHI, IMPERIAL PALACE GARDENS, AND YASUKUNI SHRINE
A Flying Head, the Shogun’s Castle, a Cultural Oasis, and the Japanese Valhalla
1 The Hill of Masakado’s Head
2 Statue of kiyomaro
3 The Imperial Palace east Garden
4 Kita-no-maru Park
5 Yasukuni Shrine
6 Chidorigafuchi Water Park
7 JCII camera Museum (diversion)
The Marunouchi financial district of Tokyo, which was explored in Walk1, has been described as the one-time site of the mansions of the inner lords of the Tokugawa sho-guns from 1603 to 1868. Just to the north of Marunouchi is the Otemachi district, which also held the mansions of the Tokugawa’s most trusted daimyo. This section is circumscribed by the main railway tracks on the east (to the north of Tokyo Station), by Uchiboridori (Inner Moat Street) before the former castle walls on the west, by Eitai-dori on the south, and by the modern Shuto (Metropolitan) Expressway on the north. The mansions of the feudal daimyo have long since disappeared from Otemachi, and today Otemachi is the home of the barons of big business, for here may be found the offices of many banks, insurance agencies, and major commercial corporations.
1 THE HILL OF MASAKADO’S HEAD
The district is well served by subway and rail lines, since Tokyo Station is just to the south of the district, while Otemachi Station itself is served by the Toei Mita, Hibiya, Tozai, Marunouchi, and Hanzomon Lines. Exiting from the Marunouchi subway line brings one to the first point of interest on this tour: the 1964 eight-story Teshin Building, which houses the Communications Museum (aka Tei-Park) on its first four floors. Anyone interested in the various forms of modern communications will enjoy this museum, for the exhibits include matters pertaining to postal, telegraph, telephone, and other forms of telecommunication. Here one will find an extensive display of postage stamps (more than 200,000), and so it comes as no surprise to learn that there is a relationship with the Ministry of Postal Services. (The museum is open from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily except Mondays; admission is ¥110.) The exhibits are labeled only in Japanese, but an English-language brochure is available upon request.
A rather unusual location can be found in the midst of this modern area of Tokyo. On leaving the Communications Museum, the east-west street should be taken to the west toward the grounds of the Imperial Palace. Just before Uchibori-dori and the Otebori Moat at the former castle grounds, surrounded by the Mitsui Bussan Building, the Long Term Credit Bank of Japan, and the Sanwa Bank, is a small open space upon which no modern financial organization has dared to build. Here is the Hill of Masakado’s Head (Masakado-no-Kubizuka), a shrine at what was once the top of the bay when Marunouchi and adjoining areas were still under water. The object of veneration worshipped at this shrine by the early fishermen of Edo was Taira-no-Masakado, a headstrong warrior of the 900s. He not only took over eight counties in the Kanto (Greater Tokyo) region, but he set himself up in his domains as the new emperor—in defiance of Kyoto’s emperor, whose claim to the throne, tradition held, was rooted in the divine origin of one of his ancestors. As the adage would have it, pride comes before a fall, and in 940 Masakado fell in battle. As was the custom of that and later times, the rebel’s head was severed and sent to Kyoto as proof of the death of this usurper of royal power. True to his headstrong ways, it is said that Masakado’s head flew back to Edo in one night to rejoin its body in its grave. The validity of the story was attested at the time by the brilliant lightning and pealing thunder that accompanied the head on its flight. As was only proper under the circumstances, a shrine to Masakado’s spirit was raised over the site of his grave in order to keep his spirit from stirring up new troubles.
Centuries later, Tokugawa Ieyasu was not one to take chances. So troublesome a spirit might threaten his domains despite the passage of 700 years since Masakado was put in his place, but no thought could be given to moving the body from its grave since this might rouse the vengeful spirit of the former warrior. Thus Ieyasu let the grave remain undisturbed—as have all the corporate chairmen of the present day, since