Japan’s Capital from Meiji to the Modern Age

Japan’s first skyscraper, the Kasumigaseki Building, erected in 1968. It is 147 meters high, with 36 floors above ground and 3 basement floors. It remains a fully functioning office building more than 50 years later, but today does not even make the top 100 ranking of Japan’s skyscrapers.

A replica of the plaque marking Nihonbashi as the starting point of Japan’s five major highways, mounted in a marker stone at the foot of the bridge. The original plaque is embedded in the center of the roadway crossing the bridge.

The original Nihonbashi was a wooden bridge built at the start of the Edo period. The current double-arched stone bridge, the nineteenth reconstruction, was built in 1911. It survived both the Great Kantō Earthquake and the fire-bombings of World War II and continues to function as part of the city’s road infrastructure.