#116 Takada no Baba

The 116th of Utagawa Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo is Takada no Baba. The original picture is here.

The third shogun of the Edo shogunate, Tokugawa Iemitsu, had a horse ground built here for training. It is said that the horse muster for the Osaka Winter Campaign took place here. The circular markings in the foreground might be targets for Yabusame (horseback archery).

Incidentally, there are 2 theories about the origin of the name “Takada no Baba”: “because it was land associated with the Echigo Takada domain” and “because it was on high ground.” In modern address notation, it is Shinjuku Ward, Nishi-Waseda, and the name Takada-no-Baba survives only as a railway station.

As for what became of the horse racing grounds themselves after the place name vanished… well, they didn’t actually remain as they were back then.

That makes sense. It would be pretty tough to establish an horse riding training center right here in the city center. So, the modern landscape of the now completely vanished “Takada no Baba” looks like this.

With no open land and certainly no targets resembling those used in yabusame archery, please forgive the use of a coin parking sign and the back of a vending machine. The scene has changed so much that it’s hard to even imagine the days of “Araki Mataemon’s Duel at Takadanobaba” or the rakugo story “Takada no Baba” based on it.

When you think of Takada-no-Baba today, Waseda University might be the first thing that comes to mind. In fact, on this day too, I was photographing while passing by many young people who looked like Waseda students.

I did stop by the Waseda campus, so I’ll include one photo here.

Along Waseda-dori street, restaurants offering student prices line the street.

Oh no. I peeked at a few menus, but they might be a bit pricey for student rates. The wave of inflation has reached here too…

The scattered used bookstores are a typical student town sight.

Standing out along the street was the Child-Rearing Jizo. I haven’t researched its detailed history, but it’s said to be a Jizo statue erected to honor Koizumi Genbei, a man who contributed greatly to the development of this area during the Edo period.