SANGENJAYA STATION (SETAGAYA WARD, TOKYO)

Changing district, same hospitality

Photos by Yomiuri Shimbun Photographer Eishi Miyasaka

By Ryuji Yanagisawa

Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

An orange tower looms high beyond the shining rails, and houses stand close and tight along the track.

As the small two-coach train entered the base of the tower, I felt a shudder of excitement, as if slipping into a science fiction movie.

Carrot Tower, a 124-meter-tall skyscraper, was built in 1996 as the redevelopment showpiece of the Sangenjaya district in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo.

The tower houses offices, a theater and a host of restaurants, with Sangenjaya Station on the first floor.

Although the station is small and has only two platforms, one to ride and another to alight, the interior has an arch-shaped ceiling and brick-lined walls that evoke an old-fashioned European terminal.

Yuichi Okajima, 73, runs a cosmetic shop in a shopping alley in front of the station. He started his business in Sangenjaya 55 years ago.

"At the time, this place was extremely lively. I couldn't see the shop on the other side of the street because of the huge crowds. Each time I stacked the shelves, everything sold out," he said.

"Also, among shop owners and between shops and customers, there was a kind of trust — we were all together," Okajima said.

It was difficult to find goods not available in Sangenjaya, where black markets thrived just after the end of World War II. The district emerged as a commercial center and offered food, household goods, stationery, drugs, beer parlors and many other things.

In its heyday, trains on the Setagaya Line, which ran about five kilometers from Sangenjaya to Shimotakaido — a branch of the Tamagawa Line streetcar service between Shibuya and Futakotamagawa — were always packed with shoppers.

The trains and streetcars were so packed that passengers would hang outside on window frames as the carriages were so full.

However, with the improvement of transport systems in the area, Sangenjaya lost its vitality and atmosphere. In 1969, the Tamagawa streetcar was closed down.

Though the Setagaya Line survived, Sangenjaya received another blow in 1977 when a subway line opened connecting Shibuya and Futakotamagawa.

Sangenjaya, halfway between the two terminals, became a mere thoroughfare for subway passengers.

At Okajima's shop, the number of customers dropped from a peak of 700 to 800 a day, to one-tenth of that.

Yoshitomo Umeda, 61, vice president of Setagaya-ku Toshiseibi Kosha, a public corporation for urban planning in the ward, said, "To revitalize the district, redevelopment was necessary."

Carrot Tower was the centerpiece of the redevelopment plan.

Walking out of the station to the main street, there are still some shops offering an atmosphere reminiscent of the postwar black market.

The tower seen from the shopping alley looks totally alien. Nevertheless, it also is a symbol of the ever-changing district of Sangenjaya.

Okajima said: "This area is regaining vitality and will continue to change more and more. But like the Setagaya Line, our hospitality remains."