Tokyo Times

Back at the beginning of this year, I photographed an old and wonderfully dated concrete robot. A playground addition that’s as colourful as it is retro, and if it were somehow capable of owning a phone, then the one below would be absolutely perfect.

Donated to the park in 1981 by the then Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation, the slide was a gesture to mark 1.5 million subscribers in the area, along with an impressive 30,000 public phone installations. Figures that now seem as dated as the push-button replica built to commemorate them, but just like the aforementioned robot, it’s that old school aspect that makes it so appealing.

This photograph was taken in early 2012 which was a time of experimentation of sorts, as after switching to a Leica, I was thoroughly enjoying the relatively unobtrusive nature of a compact camera system. It was also a time when elevator girls were a regular sight in Tokyo, and elevator girl was the actual job title. It still is in fact, as while considerably less common these days, the role persists — a sign in some respects of Japan’s slow progress when it comes to gender equality. Of course there are exceptions, such as the current governor of Tokyo, Koike Yuriko, but the higher floors remain unattainable for most women, and the roof a rarified realm deemed fit only for old men.

Several years have now passed since I first found it, but this old, dilapidated house with its long-closed shop continues to fascinate me. There’s just so much to marvel at. It has two broken vending machines, the remnants of the shop are there for all to see, and the house itself remains occupied — the unexpected sound of a radio playing upstairs being the giveaway on that initial visit.

Having walked passed many times since, there has always been a sign, or at least a sense, of someone still staying there. However, when wandering by again last week, I noticed that the upstairs windows had been boarded up, and the crumbling balcony covered with blue tarpaulin. Changes that suggested the building was now abandoned, possibly even set for demolition, so it seemed like the perfect time for a peek inside.

Some of the remaining stock was unexpected to say the least, and the old cash register is a real contraption, but the biggest surprise of all was an interruption from outside. Turns out the place is still lived in after all, as the owner had returned with some lunch. A scenario that quite rightly could have been awkward in the extreme, but as soon as he realised I was only taking photos, he was totally fine with it. In fact, he was amused by my very obvious interest, and happily told me the shop has been shut for 30 years or so. What amused him more than anything though was opening up the lone magazine on the ‘teen look’ shelf and declaring that the model must now be about my age.

Bicycles are an integral part of Tokyo life, and as such, there’s no shortage of bike shops. Some of them are large, others are quite fancy, but the vast majority remain old-style outfits run by similarly old men. Small, invariably cluttered places that are all interesting in their own way, but this one in particular reminded me of a quote from one of the best writers on Japan, the great, sadly late Alan Booth: “Isn’t it wonderful? It’s so ordinary.”