TOYAMA PARK

“Toyama is unusually open for the outskirts of Tokyo. It has rolling hills and plenty of trees...There is little of the man-made. Oddly enough, we have the lowest of the low to thank for this gift: the Army.

...Nothing's perfect, I guess."

– Fairweather Sandals, 1916

1668 | The Toyama Villa

One of the most famous estates in the High City was the Toyama Villa. It belonged to the Owari branch of the ruling Tokugawa family.

Toward the end of the 17th century, the Owari Tokugawa built a garden inside their villa. The centerpiece was an artificial hill called Gyokuen-po, or “Round Ridge.” To this day, it is the highest elevation point in the city. Inside the garden, the family built a mock-up of a commercial street. It had all kinds of shops: rice store, pharmacy, liquor store, blacksmith (think Main Street U.S.A. in Disneyland, but in a garden in 17th century Japan). The 15th Tokugawa shogun called the Toyama Villa “the most magnificent garden under the sun.”

The Toyama Villa stood for centuries, until 1859, when much of the complex was lost in a fire.

1874 | The Toyama Army College

After the overthrow of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868, the Toyama Villa fell into the hands of the new government. It was used to build a vast complex of Army facilities. In 1874, the area became home to the Toyama Army College. The army's music college, medical college, and a sprawling firing range followed shortly thereafter.

In 1916, the novelist Nagai Kafu wrote about the area:

Toyama is unusually open for the outskirts of Tokyo. It has rolling hills and plenty of trees...There is little that is artificial. In the spring, the wide expanses of grassy hills are the domain of playful children picking wildflowers. In the fall, a person of refinement may stroll through them to their heart’s content. Whatever the season, there is an endless stream of art students armed with canvases with which to paint the scenery. It is truly one big open park.

...Oddly enough, we have the lowest of the low to thank for this gift: the Army. Toyama belongs to the Army. Part of it is a firing range for the Army College, and still another part is used as a parade ground...Nothing’s perfect, I guess.

1945 | Toyama & Unit 731

On May 25, 1945, an incendiary bombing raid by the United States devastated the Toyama area. Eto Jun, a novelist who grew up in the area, was 12 years old at the time. He wrote in his memoirs:

The house I was born in...vanished without a trace...I’ve never stopped missing the red pine [that burned] at the summit of Mount Hakone, and the scent of the osmanthus flowers that grew in its shade…

Japan surrendered 3 months later. Panic consumed the Toyama Army College. Ishii Toyo, a 23 year old nurse working at the Army Medical College, was a first-hand witness. In the days before the Americans arrived, she and her colleagues dug 3 mass graves near the college. They buried hundreds of corpses and body parts stored at the college. “We’ll be in trouble if the Americans find out about these,” Ishii’s supervisor told her.

The Army Medical College in Toyama had been home base for Unit 731, a biological weapons unit notorious for experimenting on and murdering thousands of Chinese prisoners at their lab in Manchuria. Evidence suggests that the remains buried by Ishii and her colleagues had some connection to the work of Unit 731. They were likely killed on the mainland, and sent back to Japan as research specimens.

In the end, Ishii’s supervisor had nothing to fear. The United States granted immunity to Unit 731 in exchange for access to their findings.

In 1989, construction on the site of the medical college unearthed hundreds of bodies. Ishii came forward with her story in 2006, at the age of 84. “After half a century, there are few people left who know about what happened,” she told a reporter. “People should see it with their own eyes. At the very least, look at what we did.”

1947 | Toyama Heights

The U.S. firebombings left Tokyo in ruins. Huge swaths of the city were incinerated, and a million people were left homeless. In 1947, the Occupation ordered the city government to build a thousand units of public housing on the campus of the former Army College in Toyama. To speed things along, the U.S. provided building materials originally meant for troop barracks. The rolling hills admired by Nagai Kafu were bulldozed and replaced with a sea of wooden houses. The new housing development was called “Toyama Heights.”

The homes were outfitted with the latest amenities: electricity, running water, and a gas hook-up. There were open play spaces perfect for baseball. Kids turned vacant lots into sumo rings.

But with the outbreak of the Korean War, the U.S. troops began using the old firing range for target practice. The sound of machine gun fire became so intense that the local high school had to cancel classes.

1954 | Toyama Park

Using what was left of the old Army college campus, the city officially opened Toyama Park in 1954. The park consists of two zones, divided by Meiji Avenue. The Okubo area, on the west side, was built using part of the old firing range (the U.S. moved its target practice to a base in Saitama Prefecture). The Mount Hakone area, on the east side, was built on the former grounds of the Army college.

1968 | Redevelopment

By the time Toyama Park opened, Japan’s economy was booming. The postwar baby boom was in full swing, and the demand for housing far exceeded the supply. In 1968, the city began a full-scale redevelopment of Toyama Heights.

The wooden homes would make way for massive concrete towers, holding nearly 3700 single family apartments. Four of the tower blocks would have their ground floors set aside for small businesses that had set-up shop in the old Toyama Heights. Planners envisioned a self-contained, fully-planned community, with its own daycare center, community spaces, and shopping.

Like the old Toyama Heights, the new apartments were state-of-the-art. This style of planned public housing came to be called danchi, and came to symbolize the postwar vision for Japanese family life. Danchi apartments were designed for the nuclear family--a father who made money outside the home, and a mother who handled housekeeping, childcare, and eldercare.

By 1985, nearly 10,000 people called Toyama Heights home. 88 businesses operated on the ground floors of towers 3, 10, 25, and 33. Among them were grocery stores, pharmacies, and hair salons. Architecture offices, small manufacturers, and drycleaners. Photography studios, banks, and clinics. There were two camera shops--one in Tower 25, and one in Tower 33. I wonder how they felt about each other?

1990s~ | The Fall of Danchi

But today, much of that community is gone. By 2000, the population of Toyama Heights had fallen to 7000. In 2015, it was 5500. In the 30 years between 1985 and 2015, the population of people over 65 tripled. Today, more than half of all residents are over 65. 40% live alone. The shopping areas are also in rough shape. One tower’s ground level has a 70% vacancy rate. Most food retailers and restaurants have closed. The one saving grace is a food co-op.

Most danchi have gone the way of Toyama Heights. The word has become a stigma. It conjures images of decrepit concrete towers and abandoned streets—the kind of place where only the most desperate are willing to live. They are strongly associated with kodoku-shi, or "lonely death." With so many elders aging in massive block towers, it often takes days before the deceased are discovered.

Wherefore Toyama?

Where do Toyama Heights and other danchi go from here? Tokyo has launched initiatives that connect social workers with neighborhood groups. Togther, they organize check-ins with elderly neighbors. But Takahashi Hiroshi, the head of the Foundation for Senior Citizen’s Housing, says that danchi-style condominiums make neighborly interventions difficult:

The doors are the problem...They cut people off from each other. To safeguard our privacy, we’ve chosen to shut ourselves away behind iron doors, away from community. Can we keep doing that? In my view, we’re at a decision point: are we going to pry those doors open or not?

In Yokohama, the Sakonyama danchi renovated an abandoned swimming pool into a public square and green space. The residents association uses it for festivals and live performances. But most of all, it's meant as a space where residents, old and young, can get out from behind their doors to meet one another.

It’s hard to say whether Toyama Heights will see similar initiatives -- or if it’ll even get a chance to try them. In 2016, a 37 story tower of luxury condos went up just next door. Meanwhile, Toyama Park has become a favorite destination for bloggers drawn to the haunted corners of Tokyo. They have a lot to work with, between the ruins of the old Army music stage, the mass graves dug by the medical college, and the looming towers of Toyama Heights.

If Toyama Heights is redeveloped again, it will require a reckoning with history. According to Ishii Toyo, the nurse at the medical college, one of the mass graves lies underneath Tower 5. The Japanese government has never acknowledged responsibility for Unit 731. Aside from an unsuccessful excavation near Tower 5 in 2011, it has shown little interest in uncovering the graves. The bodies uncovered in 1989 have been reburied where they were found, beneath a memorial stone. So far, the government has ignored calls from victims’ families to conduct DNA testing on the remains. In the meantime, local residents continue to pressure the government to investigate. They offer tours of Toyama Park, and conduct citizen fieldwork excursions to raise awareness of the mass graves.

Come what may, perhaps the best we can hope for is something like what Toyama Heights was in its original form–a community of low-rise homes connected by shared play spaces. With Japan’s population shrinking, one would expect downsizing to be in vogue. Sadly, the 2016 tower suggests that different priorities are carrying the day.