Tokyo: 29 Walks in the World's Most Exciting City. John H. Martin

      A detail from the Nihombashi Bridge suggests its former grandeur.

      However, the Nihombashi Bridge where we begin is certainly not Ieyasu’s 1603 arched, wooden structure whose raised middle section permitted boats to pass beneath it. In 1806, the bridge collapsed as hundreds fled to the south from a fire in the Echigaya warehouse, one of a number of times in which the bridge was destroyed. At the beginning of the 20th century, any replacement structure for this or any other bridge would have to support the traffic that trams and then automobiles engendered. Thus, in 1911 a modern stone and metal bridge of some charm, 161 feet (48.3 meters) long by 89 feet (26.7 meters) wide, was erected.

      Four bronze Chinese lions stand on either side of the bridge at the northern and southern ends, while four seated dragons rest on either side of two bronze, obelisk-like light standards on the central balustrades. A copper plaque in the pavement at the center of the bridge, rather than the original black pole, today marks the point from which all dis- tances are measured from Tokyo. Time heals all wounds, and in 1911 Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the 15th and last of the Tokugawa shoguns, was invited back to Tokyo from his exile in Shizuoka for the first time since 1868 to inscribe the word Nihombashi on the new structure. His calligraphic inscription of the bridge’s traditional name appears in stone. A plaque on the western side of the southern portion of the bridge shows how the original wooden bridge appeared.

      At the northeast side of the bridge is a commemorative statue of Princess Otohime-sama, the daughter of the Dragon King. (The Dragon King resided in the river and its waters, which flowed under the bridge.) The tale of Otohime-sama is the Japanese equivalent of the American story of Rip van Winkle. Urashima Taro, smitten by the princess’s beauty, is said to have followed this daughter of the Dragon King to her home beneath the sea. They married, but when he later left her to return to his village, he found that years undersea were equal to centuries on land, and thus he was a stranger in the world to which he returned. The story is an entrancing one, but, alas, in 1964, in preparation for the Olympics of that year, an elevated highway was erected over the Nihombashi River, and the highway crosses above the bridge to the detriment of its attractiveness and, no doubt, to the dismay of the Dragon King. In 1991, on the 80th birthday of the present Nihombashi Bridge, a small terrace with benches was created at its south side, and steps were built down to a terrace from which one can obtain a better view of the 1911 structure. The terrace on the east side has a wall of ornamental water enhancing the small landing, although even from here the beauty of the bridge itself is still largely destroyed by the highway above.

      2 CHUO-DORI: TOKYO'S HIGH STREET

      Stretching south from the Nihombashi Bridge along Chuo-dori, the first major crossroad is Eitai-dori. The Tokyu Department Store, founded in 1662 and once on the left in Nihombashi 1-chome, was an early shop in the area and developed into a major merchandising enterprise with numerous branches. Under the original name of Shiragiya, it was the scene of a tragic fire in which many of its female employees died. In the second-level basement of the modern building was the “magic well,” which, it is claimed, emitted an image of the deity Kannon in the early 1700s. Nearby is the Tokyo Daido Life Insurance Building, a thin building created by Kisho Kurokawa in 1978. The arcade running through the building has its shop windows arranged in staggered fashion along the walk-way that traverses this long, narrow, interior thoroughfare, whose ceiling rises nine floors above the promenade. Adjacent is Haibara, which has been selling fine papers since the 18th century in a shop that resembles an old-time kura storage building.

      Two blocks farther along Chuo-dori, in Nihombashi 2-chome, is Maruzen on the right, one of Tokyo’s premier bookstores (open from 9:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. daily). Maruzen has an unusual history, in that it first opened in 1869, right after the Meiji period began, and its intent was to bring Western writings to Japan so as to assist in the modernization of the nation. Besides several floors of Japanese books, it still stocks a wide variety of books in languages other than Japanese. It also sells Japanese crafts, and there is even a café on the premises. Across the way is Takashimaya (open from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. daily), one of the major department stores in Tokyo, with branches elsewhere in Japan. It has an exhibition gallery and restaurants on the upper floors, a fine kimono department, and food sales in the basement; and, as with all such stores, its roof garden offers bonsai and goldfish in season, along with a small Shinto shrine in honor of the deity of the land on which the store is located. It is worth being there at 10:00 a.m. sharp to watch the daily opening ceremony, when the big doors are slowly pulled open to reveal a line of uniformed staff bowing to the first customers of the day.

      3 YAESU AND TOKYO STATION

      Four minor streets beyond Takashimaya is the wide Yaesu-dori. Across the street on the left side of Chuo-dori is the Bridgestone Museum of Art, with the collection of Shojiro Ishibashi on the second floor of the Bridgestone Building. Shojiro Ishibashi’s last name means “stone bridge,” and thus the name of the company and gallery. While the art of the French Impressionists as well as modern Japanese paintings intrigued Ishibashi, he did not neglect to collect some ancient Greek and modern sculpture as well. (The museum is open from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Tuesdays to Saturdays and until 6:00 p.m. on Sundays and national holidays. It is closed on Mondays. Entry is ¥1,000.) The collection includes paintings by Rembrandt, Picasso, Rouault, Utrillo, and Modigliani among others, together with sculptures by Rodin, Moore, and Giacometti. Ishibashi also collected the work of post-Meiji Japanese painters in the Western style, such as Foujita.