From Shinbashi to Tokyo: Business and Pleasure on the Eastern Edge of the Yamanote

Shinbashi’s Two Faces

A recurring theme of the Yamanote Line is that the neighborhoods it passes through evolve in very different ways along the inner and outer sides of the railway loop. Such is the case in Shinbashi. The outer district to the east of the tracks was once dominated by the giant Shiodome Freight Terminal sitting alongside Tokyo Bay, but this was closed in 1986. Then, in the early 2000s, 13 skyscrapers were built in the vacated plot of land, creating a “new urban center” to rival the one in West Shinjuku.

The stations on the Yamanote line stations loop. (© Pixta)

Unfortunately, time has not been kind to Shiodome. When it opened, the commercial district was so popular that it attracted 50,000 visitors on the first day. However, after only 20 years, tenants are withdrawing and its shops and restaurants are half-empty. One of its flagship buildings, Caretta Shiodome, has even attracted the mocking homonymous nickname “Kareta,“ meaning “withered.”

Shiodome is dominated by a forest of high-rises. (© Gianni Simone)

One reason for the area’s decline in popularity is its rather chaotic layout, which is the result of the lack of a proper overall plan. With confusing signage and hard-to-cross wide avenues isolating each block, the district is anything but walker-friendly as one constantly has to either dive underground or climb to an elevated walkway.

The older, inner side of Shinbashi could not be more different. As soon as you leave the station you are confronted by a warren of narrow streets chock-full of bars and eateries, karaoke salons, and naughtier places. In the daytime, this area sees relatively little pedestrian traffic, but as soon as it gets dark, it comes alive with tired salarymen and -women in search of food and drink and a good time. The neighborhood has somewhat changed since most shops were kept together with little more than corrugated tin walls and customers sat on rusty stools or beer crates, but the place is still loud and a little rough.

As Robert Whiting recalls in Tokyo Junkie:

There was a modern building in front of Shinbashi Station, not far from the 1,000-year-old Karasumori Shrine, which housed a hundred different stand bars. Later during my first year, a friend from the base and I tried to have a drink at every one of them one night (a practice called hashigo or “ladder drinking” in Japanese), but only made it through the first twenty before we both collapsed.

This no longer so modern building, a spot not to be missed in Shinbashi, is the funky-looking New Shinbashi Building, an old structure where everything—from the faded yellows and greens of the corridors to the retro tiles on the stairwells and the look of its cafes and restaurants—screams of nostalgia for the 1950s and 1960s, the postwar glory days of the Shōwa era (1926-89).

A visit to the New Shinbashi Building is a trip down Shōwa memory lane. (© Gianni Simone)

In its aging diners, you can choose such yōshoku favorites as naporitan (spaghetti with ketchup), omuraisu (omelet on rice) and tonkatsu pork cutlets. The second floor is full of massage parlors—young women of various nationalities lazily sit outside each shop, softly chatting or gazing into their phones, then whispering “Massage?” to every passing man. The third floor is dominated by a pervasive, oppressive cigarette smell thanks to Tabako Tengoku (Smoke Paradise), a café with a time-based fee system where you can bring your own food, all soft drinks and coffee are free, and you are allowed to smoke to your heart’s content.

Omuraisu. (© Pixta)

Very little in Shinbashi has survived natural and man-made disasters. The only notable exception is Hori Shōten. Completed in 1950 (a very long ago in Tokyo terms), it used to provide Western locksmithing. Until the end of 2023 when the store closed, it was possible to admire its unique collection of locks from around the world in the second-floor museum. Now the building houses one of the many coworking spaces and shared offices currently proliferating in Tokyo.

Hori Shōten is a rare architectural jewel that has been spared by disasters and developers so far. (© Gianni Simone)

In the end, we have to thank the railway for preserving some of the city’s oldest structures. While the elevated tracks of the Yamanote Line have been reinforced against earthquakes, the outer walls show the old brickwork, and you only have to peer through the gratings to see part of the ancient tunnels.

The arched walls of the elevated tracks. (© Gianni Simone)

Eating Under the Tracks

The eateries under the tracks are another reminder of the city’s older versions, first when the area was a busy black market and then when it began to feed a new army of hungry and thirsty workers until the small hours. Some of those joints are now to be found at Sanchoku Inshokugai, in the bowels of the Yamanote, directly under the rail tracks.

Sanchoku Inshokugai, near Yūrakuchō Station, is tucked away below the Yamanote tracks. (© Gianni Simone)

A new cluster of high-rises announces our arrival in Yūrakuchō. Here a multigenerational gathering of women in front of one of the buildings are waiting to get into the Takarazuka Theater, the Tokyo home to the homonymous all-female musical theater troupe, to attend one of their flamboyant productions.

Takarazuka is but one of several theaters and cinemas in Yūrakuchō, like Cine Chanter, Nichigeki, and the Yūrakuchō Mullion complex. Indeed, this is a popular entertainment and shopping district. During the Edo period (1603–1867) the area around the station was where many powerful samurai families lived and worked. However, it has now become the preserve of sophisticated female shoppers who like to patronize the likes of Tokyo Midtown Hibiya, a large mixed-use development featuring office spaces, commercial areas, dining, and entertainment facilities.

The Yūrakuchō Mullion complex is one of the area’s main entertainment centers. (© Gianni Simone)

We finally reach Tokyo Station, another two-faced area: Marunouchi, on the west side, home to sleek if rather dull-looking skyscrapers and major corporate headquarters; and Yaesu in the east, a commercial hub currently dominated by the clanging noise of construction.

Japanese workers enjoy only two or three free hours on an average working day (compared, for instance, to the four to five hours enjoyed by Germans). With their play time severely limited by work, commuting, and family life, developers have come to the rescue by placing the modern versions of the sakariba (entertainment quarters) directly inside the stations.

The cheap diners of old under the railway tracks are still there, but have turned into proper restaurants. (© Gianni Simone)

The Shinkansen Terminal’s Tokyo Station City

That’s also the case with Tokyo Station City. Located under the city’s central station, it took nine years to complete (2004–13), and can be seen as a microcosm and miniature of Tokyo itself. Here, the station has been transformed from a mere transfer point into a vast and profitable “consumption paradise” whose main purpose is to keep passengers inside the station as long as possible.

Tokyo Station’s brick facade hides an underground consumption paradise. (© Gianni Simone)

In its endlessly crowded tunnels, arranged into alleys and passages, travelers from different countries and assorted pleasure seekers not only can shop and dine but also visit a museum, relax at a spa, and even have their shoes repaired.

Tokyo seems to encapsulate what the English author Somerset Maugham wrote in his The Gentleman in the Parlour: “If a man of science can reconstruct a prehistoric animal from its thigh bone, why cannot a writer get as many emotions as he wants from a railway station?”

(Originally written in English. Banner photo: This statue of Godzilla in Yūrakuchō is a reminder that the big lizard has visited the area more than once. © Gianni Simone.)