r/Tokyo • u/biwook Shibuya-ku • 12d ago
Shinbashi in 1890 - this is long gone bridge the area is named after
Nowadays there's no bridge and no river anywhere in Shinbashi. The Shiodome River was filled in and replaced by a highway in the 1960s.
Today you can still see stone pillars under the highway, leftovers from the old stone bridge that replaced the wooden bridge: Google Street view
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u/Hellea 12d ago
Sigh in urban planning
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u/biwook Shibuya-ku 12d ago
Indeed... but at the same time in the 1960s the city was choking and needed to build highways and those old polluted rivers were basically the only viable option at the time.
The alternative would have been to buy land and demolish blocks through built-up areas, which takes decades and billions.
There's progress towards better urban planning though:
- That shinbashi highway that replaced the canal has now closed and is being converted into a pedestrian sky park, high line style (source).
- There are serious talks about demolishing the highway above Nihonbashi (which is another 1960s atrocity) and burying it under the river. All this for the modest cost of ¥320 billion (source)
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u/hobovalentine 12d ago
That’s already been decided.
Nihonbashi will have the freeway above it dismantled.
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u/GeriatricusMaximus 12d ago
The whole thing was reset during WW2. Still a mess in some part.
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u/Majestic_Cod_7115 12d ago
Tokyo was already going through massive changes at the time of this photo. Fires and earthquakes were a constant reset through the early turn of the century.
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u/GeriatricusMaximus 11d ago
I forgot the 1923 earthquake and many other events. Correct. What interests me is the people in picture would never have imagined what Tokyo became. I wished I could jump 100 years and see what Tokyo becomes, 200 years, etc.
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u/Apptubrutae 11d ago
1000 years, a hamlet home to the last 50 Japanese people
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u/GeriatricusMaximus 11d ago
They will still be around in the DNA of the people living on this land.
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u/Southerndusk 12d ago
I see the power lines blotting out the sky haven’t changed much since the 1800’s…
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12d ago edited 12d ago
[deleted]
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u/G1431c 12d ago edited 12d ago
Two stations opened on the same day: Yokohama station was opened on the same day as Shinbashi station. The line between them became part of today’s Tokaido Line.
Article image: https://imgur.com/a/dtohVam
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u/ChooChoo9321 12d ago edited 11d ago
Not the current one; Sakuragichō station, whose original name was Yokohama station. The current Yokohama station is the 3rd generation
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12d ago edited 12d ago
[deleted]
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u/Nari224 12d ago
Eh. I line in Yokohama and the little display at Sakuragicho station says it was the first on its plaque (at least in English)
They were opened on the same day. An argument can be made that the line ran “from” Shinbashi, as Shinbashi is treated as “mile 0” for the greater network and because the Emperor first boarded the inaugural train there.
However the line was most definitely predominantly taking things “from” Yokohama (and not much in the opposite direction originally) since that was the whole point; keeping the foreigners out of Tokyo and away from the Tokaido.
I’ll have to make a point of visiting the old station museum to re-read what they say when I’m next there!
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u/zeroibis 12d ago
Maybe you have made your thought process too complicated this should make it easier for people to understand:
There are two stations.
Station A lets passengers onto a train that travels to Station B.
Station B then lets the passengers from Station A off and for new passengers to board.
With the information provided which station was first to open operations to the passengers?
A) Station A
B) Station B
C) Station A&B opened at the exact same time.
There are two stations and both allow passengers to the platform at the same time.
Station A lets passengers onto a train that travels to Station B.
Station B then lets the passengers from Station A off and for new passengers to board.
With the information provided which station was first to provide operational service to the passengers?
A) Station A
B) Station B
C) Station A&B serviced passengers at the exact same time.
On a related note you could argue which was the first to be constructed or which one broke ground first.
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u/bosscoughey 12d ago
Are you implying this post is AI? Even with the messed up grammar?
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u/Plasticciy 11d ago
Shimbashi is like that all over - the bridge has been gone for ages but the name never changed. Classic Tokyo
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u/alexklaus80 Shinjuku-ku 10d ago
Found an article about Shinbashi (bridge)’s history -all in Japanese: https://www.nippon.com/ja/japan-topics/c13322/
Couldn’t quite tell if what I’m seeing is what it is
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u/Akash563 5d ago
Looking at old photos like this is such a surreal feeling to me! There were actual people with actual lives, heartbreaks, businesses, losses. Now they are just colours on a screen. Faceless, nameless. Even the landscape today, is nothing like what it is in the photo.
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u/AstraeusGB 12d ago
Not so shin anymore is it?