The Great Kanto Earthquake and Shinjuku's Relief - The Turning Point of the City in 1923

The Great Kanto Earthquake and Shinjuku's Relief - The Turning Point of the City in 1923

The Great Kanto Earthquake of September 1, 1923 devastated downtown Tokyo. Nihonbashi, Asakusa, and the Honjo and Fukagawa areas were engulfed in a massive fire, and the heart of the city lost its functionality. The theaters, yose theaters, and movie theaters in Asakusa disappeared, and people wandered about in search of new places to live and entertain themselves. People wandered about in search of new places to live and entertain themselves. The strength of the ground and the luck of escaping the spread of the fire attracted merchants, entertainers, and evacuees to the area one after another. The Musashinokan, a movie theater, was packed every day, with large deposits coming in one after another, and the merchants' houses were so prosperous that they decorated their walls with them.

Before the earthquake, Shinjuku was still considered an outlying area of Tokyo, but the loss of the downtown area changed the flow of the city and encouraged people to move westward. Cafes and movie theaters opened one after another, and popular culture took root in Shinjuku against the backdrop of the Taisho Modern spirit. While the earthquake left deep scars on the city, it also provided an opportunity to make Shinjuku an "alternative center. The foundation for the formation of the downtown area from the Showa period onward was born from the movement of people and capital caused by the disaster. The year 1923 will be remembered as the year that Shinjuku used the unfortunate event as a springboard to transform itself into a city of culture and entertainment.