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INTRODUCTION

Tokyo and Its Heritage

In 1590, Tokugawa Ieyasu, the powerful warlord of eastern Japan, was beholden to Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the military ruler over the nation. Hideyoshi, anxious to remove Ieyasu from Kyoto and the center of political power, offered to exchange certain of Ieyasu’s territorial holdings near Kyoto for a grant of extensive lands in the underpopulated area in eastern Japan. Ieyasu’s followers were aghast at their leader’s acceptance of the isolated land at Edo Bay (Tokyo Bay) in exchange for his more valuable lands near the imperial capital. Ieyasu, however, had a vision he had not yet shared with them. Here, at the tiny village of Edo (Edo means “mouth of the river” or “estuary”), where the Sumida and other rivers poured into an almost completely encircled bay at the edge of the great Kanto Plain, he would create a mighty civil capital. And from here he and his heirs would rule all of Japan.

With the passage of time, with patience and guile—and with force—Ieyasu would bring this vision to reality. By 1598 Hideyoshi was dead, and, in the ensuing struggle among the daimyo (feudal lords) contesting for power, Ieyasu had by 1603 conquered all who stood in his way. As victor, Ieyasu moved the seat of civil and military control from an effete aristocratic court in Kyoto to the land at the head of the large and sheltered bay where he would build his capital. Thus Edo, the future Tokyo, began its modern existence. From here, as shogun (“barbarian-subduing generalissimo”), he ruled over Japan in the name of the powerless emperor and over the 176 “inside lords” (fudai daimyo)—those who had sided with him before his decisive and victorious battle at Sekigahara in 1603—as well as the 86 “outside lords” (tozama daimyo), who had not been farsighted enough to be his allies.

The shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu

Ieyasu forced both the inside and the outside daimyo to supply labor, materials, and funds for the construction of an impregnable castle in Edo, and the work of creating moats, canals, walls, and a fortified residence went on until 1640. From 1603, and for the next 265 years, Ieyasu and his successors as sho-guns were to rule the nation with unparalleled control. To both monitor and financially weaken any possible contenders for power, Ieyasu enforced the rule of sankin kotai (alternate attendance) on his vassals. Alternate periods of two years had to be spent by the leaders of the great clans at their Edo residence. Thus the great daimyo, the territorial lords, made their compulsory biennial passage from their domains to Edo, with the panoply and display required by Tokugawa shoguns. It was an ostentatious progress, which would keep them sufficiently impoverished. At the end of the period of attendance on the shogun, their return to their territorial homes took place with the same pomp. One half of the outside lords had to make their journey to Edo in March, while the other half returned to their homes that month. The inside lords made their biennial journey in alternate years in August.

In Edo, custom and honor forced these daimyo to live in splendid mansions befitting their rank. On their return to their domains, they had to leave their women and children behind in their Edo palaces of Momoyama grandeur as hostage and warrant of their good behavior. (The Momoyama era in the late 1500s was a period of great artistic ostentation.) The expense of maintaining their territorial seat of power as well as an elaborate establishment in Edo, with the incumbent costly procession between the two locations, financially precluded any attempts on their part to mount a threat by force against the Tokugawa. As an additional precaution, the Tokugawa had barriers erected at points along the main highways into Edo, and here the rule of “No women out, no guns in” maintained the hostage system and kept the daimyo weaponless in the new capital.

The Yoshiwara pleasure district, with pedestrians among the teahouses and shops

For 265 years the Tokugawa ruled from their mighty Edo Castle, a fortress that only nature and time—and no military attack—would subdue. Its nemesis appeared in the form of earthquakes and fire, and these untoward events occurred on more than one occasion. When Tokugawa power finally came to an end in 1868, Edo was renamed Tokyo (To, meaning “eastern,” and kyo, meaning “capital”). Then a 16-year-old emperor was moved from Kyoto to reign from the former castle grounds. Ostensibly, power had returned from the shogun to the emperor, but time would disclose the powerless nature of imperial rule, since the nation’s new military leaders were the real power behind the throne and would both enhance and endanger the nation’s place in the world. It is one of the ironies of history that in time a “blue-eyed shogun” in the guise of an American general would reign over Japan for a number of years, before a new and democratic form of government would issue from the political and economic centers beyond the Edo Castle, now become the Imperial Palace of Tokyo.

Thus Tokyo has been a major city for centuries, surpassing in size all of the great capitals of Europe since the 17th century. It is a city that, prior to 1868, witnessed the pageantry of the shoguns’ days, as the great lords of Japan progressed in state behind their retainers along the Tokaido Road to their sumptuous mansions in the shadow of the shogun’s castle. In more modern times, the city has seen the manipulations of the military attempting to make Japan a world power by employing the same and sometimes more brutal imperialistic means as those used by the nations of the West. It has faced as well the devastations of earthquakes and the “flowers of Edo,” those all-consuming fires that swept periodically over Edo and old Tokyo and left it but ashes and a memory.

The Eddoko, the sons of Edo (and they were mostly sons, since until recent times men have always outnumbered women by two to one in the city), have always risen to the challenges that have rained down upon the city either by the forces of nature or the actions and laws of those who ruled over them. Despite the destructions of the 20th century, which leveled much of Tokyo—first in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 and then in the fire-bombing raids of the spring of 1945, which in each case left more than 100,000 dead and saw a city of wood disappear in flames—there is a history and a continuity of tradition that has not died. Tokyo since the 1950s has been a phoenix revived. It is a city that offers visitors the most modern of façades and boasts towering skyscrapers that, it is claimed, can withstand future earthquakes. Yet the traditions of the past have been retained, despite all of the modernization visible in this early 21st century.

It is the intention of this guide to explore present-day Tokyo and selected areas near Tokyo in a series of walking tours with a view to the past that has made the present possible—a past whose memory still lingers in the urban life of an ever-changing city. In the following pages, the various intriguing areas of Tokyo will be explored on foot, with a narrative describing the buildings and neighborhoods, and the people and history behind them. This guide does not offer a compendium of restaurants (which can be found at every hand) or shops with their infinite variety of fine or expensive wares. On occasion mention will be made of particular department stores or specialty shops, for these cannot be ignored in such areas as Ginza, Shibuya, or Shinjuku, but the listings are not meant to be comprehensive. Museums are noted and some described in the course of a tour, but many of these require a separate visit in order to enjoy their extensive holdings. Each tour is so organized that one can leave it at a specific subway station and return at another time if the tour is found to be longer than desired.

Part of the pleasure of walking in Tokyo comes from viewing the architectural variety Expressed in many of the unusual structures within the city. In the last quarter of the 20th century, Japanese architects (and some foreign architects with Tokyo commissions as well) became more imaginative and more daring in their architectural designs. Experimentation, innovation, creativity, and sometimes even extravagant conceptions have appeared on the face of the city. Witness the façade of one building on Meiji-dori near the Togo Shrine that has a jagged crack built into its construction, as though the building had been damaged by an earthquake. Or view the building near the Ebisu rail station that lacks the lower part of its façade, again as though a cataclysmic event had exposed a portion of the inner building.

Nihombashi, the commercial center of Edo in the early days, with Mt. Fuji in the background

The walking tours that follow begin at that place where many visitors arrive in Tokyo, Tokyo Station. The walks then spiral out from the palace and the castle to encompass the variety that the city has to offer. The subway or other rail station from which each walk begins is indicated at the start of the walk, and specific instructions as to how to get there are provided in sidebars at the end. Thus, with the map of the city and the plan of the Tokyo subway lines provided herein, one can venture forth into a fascinating modern and ancient metropolis. Before striking out into unknown territory, one can always purchase sandwiches from the many convenience stores in order to have a picnic lunch en route at a park or a shrine. These stores, which are open 24 hours a day, can also provide food for breakfast and dinners should one find restaurant or hotel dining prices too high.

No book on Tokyo, nor any individual who is interested in the capital of Japan as a living city with roots in a storied past, can afford to ignore the scholarly yet popular volume by Paul Waley in his Tokyo Now and Then or Edward Seidenstecker’s Low City, High City and Tokyo Rising, or Sumiko Enbutsu’s Old Tokyo. These volumes are essential guidance for anyone wishing further information on a most fascinating city.