#O52
1869
Japanese woodblock printed book ca. 7x15,5 cm (2 ¾ x 6 in). 75 douple-ply leaves. Text in black and red. With a folding plan ca. 11x13 cm (4 ½ x 5 ¼ in). With some minor wear to binding, but otherwise in very nice condition and with title plate intact. Housed in a Japanese-style slipcase.
A comprehensive early Meiji era list of streets and suburbs in Tokyo, supplemented with a folding map of the Teppozu area in the Tsukiji district, showing the Sumida River, Teppozu shrine, and the “Foreigners’ settlement” formed earlier the same year. Supplementary information on the names of towns is added in red ink. Overall a very interesting guide to old Tokyo, which was mostly destroyed or burned down including the Tsukiji district in the Great Kanto earthquake on September 1, 1923.
“In 1869, Tsukiji was designated as an approved residential area for foreigners. As the Yokohama foreign settlement, opened in 1859, had already become a center for commercial activities and international trade, Tsukiji grew more as a focus for education, healthcare and Christian mission work. Early classroom and study facilities for Keio University, Rikkyo University, St. Margaret's Junior College, the American School in Japan and St. Luke's International Hospital were all to be found in this district. From 1875 to 1890 the United States legation also occupied a site in Tsukiji now occupied by the St. Luke's Garden complex. Tsukiji was also the location from 1869 of the Imperial Japanese Navy technical training facilities, renamed in 1876 as the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy. In 1888 the Naval Academy was relocated to from Tsukiji to new, larger facilities at Etajimain Hiroshima Prefecture. The Tsukiji naval buildings next to the Akibashi bridge then became home, until 1923, of the Naval War College, a post-graduate staff college for senior naval officers” (Wikipedia).
