#006 Bakurocho Hatsuneno Baba

The sixth scene of the 100 Famous Edo Views by Utagawa Hiroshige is “Bakurocho Hatsune no Baba” .

The purpose of my walking around this place is to go out and take pictures to compare with the past, but this time, I was bummed out from the very beginning. Neither the Baba(Horse yard) nor the fire watchtower depicted in the book exist, of course, and the area itself has changed, with the Bakurocho wholesale district now lined with office buildings.

The area has been rezoned and is now lined with office buildings in the Bakurocho wholesale district.

I couldn’t find the nice drooping branches depicted in the work, so I borrowed some greenery from a potted plant in the foreground that I don’t know which one belongs to, which I found on the side of the road. Thank you very much.

It is said that Hatsune no Baba was the first horse yard set up by the Shogun family in Edo, and that the Tokugawa army held a horse-arranging ceremony (a demonstration event before going into battle) at the start of the Battle of Sekigahara. The formal owner of it was a nearby shrine, and according to my research, it may be the Hatsunnenomori Shrine, which stands solemnly on the first or second floor of a building on Ryogoku-bashi-dori.

Also, although unrelated to the main story, I found a café with a pretty nice atmosphere right near where the photo was taken.

It is the perfect cozy café, and I too had a warm latte to sip on. The retro building is not only old, but also a living witness of Tokyo’s history of suffering, as it was the only building in the vicinity that survived the Tokyo Air Raid in WWII and saved the lives of many residents who had to evacuate the area. Here are some links to related sites.