Omoide Yokocho after the 1999 fire and...Restored for destruction
A little local colour in a bar is, generally, a good thing but Omoide Yokocho has never seemed very inviting. It is hard to feel sad that it will be on its way out.
Guardian: Progress threatens old corner of Tokyo
The unobservant passerby could easily miss Omoide Yokocho, and if the developers get their way by 2008 it will be gone for good.
Like many other crumbling drinking strips in the capital, Omoide Yokocho (Memory Lane), a bare 100 metres of ramshackle bars and restaurants between the skyscrapers and department stores of the Shinjuku district, may be replaced by the business and entertainment buildings many Tokyo residents believe are depriving the city of its character.
...Osamu Abe, enjoying a post-work beer and grilled chicken with a colleague at the tiny Fukuhachi grill, full despite the driving rain, is horrified. "I admit this isn't the kind of place where you can take your wife and children at the weekend," he says. "But as somewhere to unwind with friends after work and indulge in small talk, it can't be beaten. I don't know what I'll do when it's gone."
...Yokocho grew out of the black market that thrived in areas like Shinjuku during the postwar US occupation. At their peak there were an estimated 1,600 tiny establishments. But their earthiness has become a minor embarrassment to city leaders wishing to promote Tokyo as a modern, comfortable city. Yokocho's public toilets leave much to be desired, and have earned the area the nickname "piss alley".
Almost identical Japan Times article from June:Shinjuku strip faces reckoning
Also this comment from LDK LDK: Shinjuku
After the party, we went to Omoide Yokocho ('Memory Alley') to have a drink. I felt like something had changed since the last time I went there, five years ago. Cleaner maybe? I found out that there was a big fire in Nov 1999. The alley didn't have any toilet for a long time and Omoide Yokocho was nicknamed Shonben Yokocho ('Piss Alley'). There is a public bathroom now, but I don't know how clean it is! When I was repeating the word 'piss', the lady who worked at the bar told me 'that is an old name!'
