tsukiji is 70 years old
Tokyo, 2010.02.11
My favourite fish market just turned 70 years old.
wrapping up after a busy morning
According to a newspaper article, it was set up in its current place after a disaster wiped out the former one. The current site is now laden with problems: crowding (I can attest to that, having been through the thing at a snails pace on many occasions); 400 traffic accidents a year (I was knocked off my bike there two years ago by a careless driver); heavy metals and toxins all around (!); and a crumbling infrastructure that has caused blocks of concrete and chunks of metal to fall from the main buildings.
a quiet corner of the giant fish market
Time to move. Needless to say, different levels of government are fighting over what can be done about getting the market to a new home. And nothing much else is happening. So it's business as usual in the filthy, polluted, crowded, dangerous and wonderful Tsukiji. Happy birthday, fish market!
traffic cops required
