Some of you may remember me posting about the trees in my neighborhood park, Hamacho Koen, being under threat. Sad to report that the local residents and the trees lost. Despite overwhelming opposition to the plan and pleas to find alternatives at the public meeting. 😭

I've been collecting images of daily life in old Japan since 2007: • Some 10,000 can be seen online. • There are another 40,000 offline. • I've written over 340 articles. MeijiShowa meijishowa.com – Image Archive Old Photos of Japan oldphotosjapan.com – Stories

In 1881, the Englishman Arthur H. Crow walked #Japan's legendary #Nakasendō Highway. Crow’s account is wonderfully descriptive, so I have selected a few sections and added some photographs of the Nakasendō from the same period. oldphotosjapan.com/photos/937/alb…

I've been collecting images of daily life in old Japan since 2007: • Some 10,000 can be seen online. • There are another 40,000 offline. • I've written over 340 articles. MeijiShowa meijishowa.com – Image Archive Old Photos of Japan oldphotosjapan.com – Stories

The typhoon also hit #Kobe, opened to foreign trade only 3 years prior. The disaster shocked #Japan's new foreign residents. I've dug up fascinating first-hand accounts of Japan's #typhoons from the 1800s, plus video clips from the 1930s and 1945. oldphotosjapan.com/photos/938/187…

YOSHIWARA EXHIBITION An exhibition about the Yoshiwara red light district will be held at The University Art Museum in Ueno Park, Tokyo. For some 250 years the government-sanctioned Yoshiwara district was a public institution, with distinct formalities, traditions and culture.

🧵 1/4 Next week a brand new sentō (銭湯, public bathhouse) opens in the futuristic Harakado building right in the center of Tokyo's Harajuku. The owner aims to show that there still is a place for sentō in Japan. kosugiyu-harajuku.jp

Fantastisch, Gijs. Heel fijn dat het werk gewaardeerd wordt. Enorm bedankt.

1 of 1 A photo from the 1910s of people in boats, on an idyllic pond filled with scarlet carps, and surrounded with romantic open teahouses and sheltering trees. This spot lay close to what is today the world’s busiest train station, Shinjuku Station.

This is Nishi-Shinjuku in the 1910s, unbelievably rural. For 3 months I dug into the history of this place, and found one surprise after the other. I am introducing them in a five-part essay. Find the link to the first part in the comments. A story you will find nowhere else.

Tomorrow, Part 2 of my five-part essay about the forgotten pond at Tokyo’s Nishi-Shinjuku goes live. We explore how this celebrated place of natural beauty was actually fully man-made—even the famous waterfall! Sign up to the newsletter from my profile to get it in your inbox.

1 of 2 Cherry blossom along the Tamagawa Jōsui at Koganei in the 1890s. This 43 kilometer aqueduct supplied much of #Tokyo’s drinking water, and gave birth to Tokyo's celebrated waterfall at Jūnisō, in what is today Nishi-Shinjuku.

Thread : 1 of 4 Since May I have been researching the lost pond in Shinjuku that tells the story of Tokyo I found fascinating info in an article published in 1890 by daily newspaper Asahi Shimbun, and featured in my upcoming article (Part 4 of 5)

THREAD : 1 of 4 Since late July I have been telling the story of a forgotten pond in what is today Nishi-Shinjuku, Tokyo’s famous skyscraper district. Part 4 takes us to the period after Japan was first opened to foreign trade.

THREAD : 1 of 2 I have been telling the story of a forgotten pond in what is today Tokyo’s famous skyscraper district. Part 5 takes us into the early 1900s when the natural sanctuary where “worldly desires vanish” was converted into a place to satisfy worldly desires.