Partial demolition work on the approximately 560-meter-long giant arcade that is the symbol of Happy Road Oyama Shopping District in Itabashi, Tokyo will begin this spring. The move is in conjunction with metropolitan road maintenance plans and redevelopment. Many residents have mixed feelings about the future fate of the arcades that will be divided into city centers. Why was that arcade created? We asked Atsushi Ohno (82), former chairman of the shopping district, who knows the history. (Takuya Kishimoto)
◆It started as a black market, but now 30,000 people go there every day.
In December 2023, I walked through Oyama Shopping Street with Mr. Ohno. “The area from here on will be demolished starting in April. In the future, there won’t be an arcade that long.” Mr. Ohno stopped in the middle of the shopping street and looked over 100 meters ahead.
Atsushi Ohno looking at a shopping arcade in Itabashi Ward, Tokyo
The Oyama Shopping Street, which connects Oyama Station on the Tobu Tojo Line to Kawagoe Kaido, started out as a black market with more than 100 shops gathered around the station after the war, and has developed into its current form through rapid growth. In the midst of this, the development of giant arcades emerged in the 1970s.
Ohno says there were two reasons. First, there was a construction plan for a commercial facility centered around the Ikebukuro skyscraper Sunshine 60, which was in progress at the time. Then there is the “Auxiliary Route 26” project, which was conceived by the War Disaster Reconstruction Agency immediately after the end of the war and taken over by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, to construct a 20-meter-wide road that divides the shopping district. In 1972, local residents formed the “Affiliated Route 26 Anti-Abolishment Alliance” to oppose the project.
Mr. Ohno said, “I felt a great sense of danger of losing customers to Sunshine.I learned from examples in Kansai and elsewhere where arcades were used as a centerpiece to attract customers, and if this was done, it would enhance the appeal of the town and prevent the fragmentation of shopping streets by Subway Route 26. “I knew I would be able to do it. With that thought, I became determined,” he recalls.
◆Prosperity created by harmony as young people work hard
However, there was a problem. At that time, it was divided into “Oyama Ginza Shopping Street” near Oyama Station and “Oyama Ginza Bikangai” near Kawagoe Kaido. The condition set by the Tokyo metropolitan government for partially subsidizing the cost of developing the arcade was that the shopping district be merged.
However, Ohno says, “The two shopping districts were not on good terms.” Daisen Ginza was made up of grocery stores and Bikangai was made up of clothing stores, and they were in a rivalry relationship with each other. It is said that there was a case where the Tokyo Metropolitan Government staff member in charge went home because Ginza Oyama executives did not invite Bikangai executives to a briefing session with the metropolitan government.
The “glue” was the “Tokyo Itabashi Specialty Store Association,” whose members include specialty store owners from both shopping districts. “Although we are in different shopping districts, we were able to get along through the activities of the specialty store association, and the two young people were able to mediate.” Mr. Ohno, who was running a camera store at the time and was the youth manager at Oyama Ginza, also worked hard to reconcile the situation. The shopping street was merged in March 1977, and the arcade was completed in April 1978.
“The ceremony was extravagant, including the Yokohama dragon dance and setting off firecrackers,” he recalls fondly. The shopping street was named “Happy Road Oyama” through a public contest, and Mr. Ohno’s catchphrase, “His long roof that continues to be happy,” was also born. After the arcade was completed, the traffic increased by 1.5 times, and now more than 30,000 people visit each day.
◆ Tower Man is divided: “It’s not the city we wanted.”
However, the arcade, a symbol of the shopping district that has come together through hardships, is now on the brink of fragmentation. This is because the Tokyo metropolitan government officially decided to commercialize Line 26 in 2015. Coupled with the related redevelopment plan to build a total of four tower condominiums, the approximately 180-meter long arcade that runs through Route 26 is about to be demolished.
Land acquisition for Route 26 has been difficult, and there are no prospects for its construction, but demolition work is expected to begin this spring. Mr. Ohno is sad. “If the arcade were to disappear, it would be obvious that the commercial environment would worsen and customers would be inconvenienced. The supermarkets would also be forced to leave, and the function of the shopping district would no longer be viable. It shouldn’t be.”
2024-01-07 03:00:00
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