TOKYO STATION (CHIYODA WARD, TOKYO)
Central junction of capital's history
| The redbrick structure of Tokyo Station's Marunouchi side at nighttime, with a forest of tall buildings in the background |
| Babies from a nearby nursery at the station on their daily outing |
| This relief, a part of the original building, survived the bombing of World War II. It was kept in the attic above the North Exit of the Marunouchi-side building. |
| This guest room at the Tokyo Station Hotel overlooks the station's concourse. The hotel will be closed while restoration work is carried out. |
Photos by Yomiuri Shimbun Photographer Yasunari Itayama
By Shin Usami
Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer
" 'Anywhere he goes, he comes up to Tokyo Station first,' said a Tokyoite classmate, laughing and making fun of me for being a bumpkin," wrote Hiroyuki Agawa, 85, in his essay "Waga Akogare no Tokyo Eki" (The Tokyo Station of My Dreams), published in a travel magazine two years ago.
Agawa came to Tokyo from Hiroshima in 1940 to study at Tokyo University, where he majored in Japanese literature. He was a stranger to the metropolis, and anytime he went to a bookshop in Nihonbashi or to a movie theater in Yurakucho, he made it a rule to start his journey from Tokyo Station.
"It was half true, but the other half of the reason was I really liked to wander around the station anyway. Between three and four o'clock in the afternoon, the Fuji tokkyu [limited express] from Shimonoseki, [Yamaguchi Prefecture,] arrived and between four to five the Sakura arrived and between five to six the Kamome arrived. It was only this station in Tokyo that limited expresses departed from and arrived at then. Tokyo Station had a special status," reminisced the writer, who is fond of railways.
Agawa said as he ages he is filled with deeper emotions when he looks at Tokyo Station, with which he has survived from the Taisho (1912-26) through Heisei (1989- ) periods.
The station had only eight platforms in those days, compared with 28 today. With the introduction of Shinkansen bullet train services, a total of 3,900 trains carrying 900,000 passengers pass through the station each day.
"I don't think there's any reason to have to go to Kyoto in a little more than two hours, but I want to take the faster Shinkansen Nozomi rather than a Hikari. Tokyo Station is a symbol of Japan's modernization and wealth. Whether that's good or bad is not the issue," Agawa said.
The full-scale restoration of the station's redbrick Marunouchi-side building to its original design will start next month. The five-year project includes reconstruction from the original design by architect Kingo Tatsuno (1854-1919) of the third floor and cupola domes, which were destroyed during World War II.
The restoration is scheduled to be completed in 2011, when the building will look as it did when it opened in 1914.
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This is the final installment of the Station series.
(March. 31, 2006)
JAPANESE
The Daily Yomiuri, The Yomiuri Shimbun
