Let’s begin with a short questionnaire: Have you ever walked from Bashamichi to Isezaki-chō across Yoshida-bashi Bridge? Ambled along the broad sidewalks of Nihon-Ōdōri Boulevard, shaded by bright yellow ginkgo trees in autumn? And then sauntered into Yokohama Park to view the tulips in springtime? Wandered over to Ōsanbashi Pier to gaze out at the ships in Yokohama harbor? Have you ordered a product online from overseas, hoping that the ship carrying it would safely enter that harbor? Have you turned on the faucet, confident that clean water would emerge? More prosaically, flushed your toilet recently? (Please do so.) If…
Author: Glenn Scoggins
This year Yokohama celebrates 165 years since its birth in 1859, when the port was opened to international trade. Our city is young when compared to Kyoto’s 1230 years or even the four centuries of Edo/Tokyo. Moreover, it suffered two catastrophes in 1923 and 1945, when the city was effectively obliterated from below, in the Great Kantō Earthquake, and from above by American aerial fire-bombing. Accordingly, very few buildings survive; only a dozen structures built before 1923 remain intact. However, those that do demonstrate the integration of Western culture into the built landscape of the city, and are a microcosm…
Residents and visitors alike will be familiar with the Yokohama Foreign General Cemetery. Perched precariously on the Yamate-chō cliff and tumbling down the steep slope to Motomachi, it provides one of the city’s most iconic vistas. Innumerable snapshots of the harbor and downtown area feature gray headstones and white crosses in their foregrounds. Its origins date back to 1854, when Robert Williams, a 24-year-old marine on Commodore Perry’s USS Mississippi, became the first foreigner to be buried in Japanese soil for centuries. While the grave of Williams was temporary, from 1861 over 5000 others have filled the 18,000 square meters,…
The most influential and prolific foreign architect in Japan never had any formal training. William Merrell Vories (1880–1964) was born in Kansas and attended Colorado College, arriving in Japan in 1905 as an English teacher. Entirely self-taught, he designed over 1600 structures during his long career—a shining tribute to determined autodidacticism, and possibly to English teachers! Vories spent most of his life in the small town of Ōmi-Hachiman, on the shore of Lake Biwa. As a lay missionary, he had close ties to the YMCA movement, and his first design was its local headquarters. Over twenty of his structures can…
Yokohama has hosted world championship finals in many sports. Yokohama Stadium saw Japan win the Olympic gold medals in baseball and softball in 2021, while Nissan Stadium was the venue for the final matches in both the 2019 Rugby World Cup and the 2002 FIFA World Cup. This autumn the world champions of another sport were crowned in Yokohama: cycle messengers. Competing in events such as Delivery Race and Cargobike Race, the strongest cyclists in the world converged on Yokohama and went head-to-head and tire-to-tire to determine who was fastest and most skilful. An exciting week of sports, arts, and…
Ken’ichi Yanagawa, universally known as “Yanaken,” is cheerful, enthusiastic, articulate, and always full of infectious energy! However, after six years of planning and many weeks of hosting the 2023 Cycle Messenger World Championships (CMWC–see next article), he understandably needed a rest. A few days off was all it took for him to recover his characteristic dynamism. On a Friday night at the end of a full week back at work, Yanagawa was still vibrant and tireless when he sat down with Seasider for an interview. Born 49 years ago in Kami-Ōoka, the heart of Yokohama, Yanagawa always enjoyed pushing his…
Antonín Raymond (1888-1976) had a long and influential career as an architect in Japan and the U.S., including four existing buildings in Yokohama. Born in Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now the Czech Republic), Raymond emigrated to New York in 1912 and soon began working with Frank Lloyd Wright at his landmark structure, Taliesin. Arriving in Japan on New Year’s Eve in 1919, he joined Wright’s team in Tōkyō to build the iconic Imperial Hotel, although artistic differences separated the two soon after. Raymond remained in Japan for most of the remainder of his long career, interrupted only…
Instagram: seans_yokohama Our “Anaba” series has featured eating and drinking spots that are hard to find, but well worth the effort. What about an “anaba” that’s not only off the beaten track, but only opens twice a week, with just two menu items? That renders it obscure on the continuum of space, time, and food. Judging by the overflow crowd on a Sunday night, however, it’s a winning combination. Sean Kramer has a way with meatballs. His pop-up, operating out of the Smiley Smile bar in Bashamichi, is his second venture specializing in these tasty spheres. (From 2015 to 2020,…
Red brick architecture was synonymous with 19th-century Yokohama. An iconic landmark, Yokohama Port Memorial Hall, boasts a clock tower with alternating red and white bricks. The Red Brick Warehouses on Shinkō Pier have survived through a century despite an earthquake, a world war, and the prospect of demolition. They are the focus of Yokohama shoreline today. But who first made bricks in Yokohama? Find the answer in Motomachi Park. Meiji-era buildings in Yokohama were built with bricks manufactured by a Frenchman, Alfred Gérard. He was born in 1837 in Reims, northern France, and arrived in Yokohama penniless in 1863. He…
October 14 marked 150 years since the first railway in Japan connected Shimbashi in Tōkyō with Sakuragi-chō, the original Yokohama Station. There have been three Yokohama Stations, with the current location in use since 1930. However, for 15 years the name “Yokohama Station” belonged to an impressive but long-forgotten brick palace. How many people pass by its remains daily without recognizing its place in Yokohama’s history? The location of Sakuragi-chō was convenient to central Yokohama, but it was not on the main Tōkaidō route from Tōkyō to Ōsaka, requiring a time-consuming switchback. The opening of Tōkyō Station in 1914 ushered…