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76 chapter three Roppongi Rises six trees In Tokyo, it is common for subdistricts of the city, major streets, key bridges, hillocks, slopes, and other bits of geography to have names that are instructive about local history. In Roppongi, which means “six trees,” it is often assumed that the reference is to specific trees that stood there in the past. As previously mentioned, these “trees” are actually the family names of six feudal lords who had their mansions in the district in the early years of the Tokugawa Shogunate: Uesugi (upper Cryptomeria), Kutsuki (rotting tree), Takagi (tall tree), Aoki (green tree), Katagiri (wayside Paulownia), and Ichiryū (one willow) (Waley 1984, 384–85). They were among the many elites who lived on this somewhat elevated and leafy side of Edo (old Tokyo) that we defined earlier as yamanote, “the land in the direction of the mountains.” Although not much is known about the specific properties of the six “tree lords,” their houses (and those of their neighbors) were almost certainly large and lavish, and their grounds were carefully landscaped in accordance with expectations for persons of their status. Many of Roppongi’s place-names are reminders that this heavily built-up urban district was once green and leafy. For example, there is the district name Hinokichō, an old name still in use that predates Roppongi and means “place of cypress trees.” The ancient shrine Hikawa-jinja, famous for its enormous gingko trees, is in Hinokichō. It is approached via Hinoki-zaka, “Cypress Tree Slope.” The word Hikawa-jinja means “frozen river shrine” but does not apply to local conditions; instead, the name had been transported to the neighborhood along with the shrine from elsewhere in early Edo times. Other nature names in and near Roppongi include “Raccoon Slope,” “Darkness Slope,” “Lone Pine Tree Slope,” and “Potato-Washing Slope.” The name of Roppongi’s neighbor, Azabu, means “place where asa (hemp) is grown”; it has had this name from before the time of the shōguns (Waley 1984, 384). The many trees that are girdled with small signs reading Minato-ku hogoju, “Minato Ward Protected Tree,” are further reminders that the area was once forested. This designation is given to trees Roppongi Rises • 77 with a trunk circumference of one meter or more (Moriyama 1993, 249–50). A grouping of such giants indicates that the site was once the estate of someone important. Early Roppongi was also the domain of many temples and shrines. In addition to the “Frozen River Shrine” mentioned above, there were also Zōjōji, the huge roadside religious complex on the far side of Tokyo Tower from Roppongi that was mentioned in chapter 2, and Zempukuji, a powerful old temple just south of the neighborhood in today’s Moto-Azabu 1-chōme. Zempukuji was described in chapter 2 as the base of operations beginning in 1868 for the first American delegation to Japan and its leader, Townsend Harris. Other temples and shrines are less famous but have also been longstanding ingredients of the Roppongi mix. Many of them were established in Roppongi in response to a decree after the huge fire in Edo in 1657 that religious institutions should vacate the crowded city and find space instead amid the verdure of yamanote. Their approaches were typically lined with shops, refreshment stands, and other businesses, and behind those lanes emerged narrow lanes and alleys with the crowded wooden homes of shopkeepers and the religious proletariat. A great many of the temples and shrines have or had burial grounds. A theme explored later in the book is that some people in Tokyo today believe that Roppongi’s current problems are linked, at least in part, to a history of developers’ disrespect for the necropolis: to make room for their buildings, they removed cemeteries altogether or perhaps even built atop them. Old maps of the area show interesting topographic associations. The most important of the daimyo and other military ranks had the highest elevations, with homes directly on hilltops or arranged one after the other along ridge lines. Many enjoyed southern exposures. Their gardens stretched along the slopes below. Lesser officials also lived on the slopes, typically in group housing arrangements referred to as kumiyashiki. Roads followed the valleys, and along them were shops and the houses of working people. The brilliant anthropologist of Edo and Tokyo cityscapes Hidenobu Jinnai referred to commoner districts in the valleys as “the low city within the high city” (Jinnai 1995, 61). Builders...

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