Many Tokyo train stations, and particularly Shinjuku station, are magnets for street musicians. Although not a “green space” in terms of biodiversity, street music contributes to livable streets and creative cities.
Music in public spaces makes streets and sidewalks more than places to pass through on the way to somewhere else. And with a continuous flow [...]
Posts Tagged ‘street’
20 Dec
Street music
26 Nov
Flower breaking through the pavement
Much of Tokyo is covered in concrete and pavement. In the photo above, a low traffic small street has impermeable pavement. There is a wide, unnecessary brick sidewalk in the foreground built to accompany a recent apartment building. Two private residences also have concrete car-parks and cement surrounds. If you look very closely, to the [...]
5 Nov
Adopt a San Francisco street tree for Christmas program
The City of San Francisco has created a cool program encouraging people to adopt at San Francisco street tree for Christmas instead of purchasing a dead pine tree. City residents can choose between Southern Magnolia, Small Leaf Tristania, Strawberry Tree, and New Zealand Christmas Tree. For US$95 you can pick up a 2 meter potted [...]
4 Nov
Speaking at Anthropology of Japan in Japan conference
This weekend I will be presenting a talk, “Urban Gardeners and the City of the Future,” in an Urban Japan panel at the Anthropology of Japan in Japan conference. It will be held at Temple University’s Japan campus, and my panel is Saturday November 7 from 1 pm to 3 pm along with papers on [...]
8 Oct
Neighborhood rice
It’s wonderful to see rice growing in a simple residential street garden, alongside geraniums and other ornamentals. The rice is nearly ready to be harvested. Below you can see that it is growing in a blue plastic pot and a white styrofoam box. What it lacks in aesthetics it exceeds in frugality and resourcefulness.
I haven’t [...]
7 Oct
Neighbor’s Fig and Grapes
A neighbor’s garden, which I blogged about twice before, has almost ripe fall fruit. This garden consists of no more than eight potted plants and some hanging baskets, occupying a small footprint and extending two stories up to the front entrance.
Above are figs, and below grapes. The fig tree seems to have busted its way [...]
26 Sep
Fall omatsuri
This month there are many neighborhood omatsuri, festivals organized by local shrines to celebrate the harvest. Like the summer omatsuri I wrote about earlier, the festivals include carrying portable shrines through the streets, taiko drums, music, costumes include happi and fundoshi, public eating and drinking, and much neighborhood socializing.
Above is a large night festival in [...]
16 Sep
Asagaya Zelkova Tunnel
Perhaps the most beautiful street in western Tokyo is this Zelkovia (keyaki or 欅)tree tunnel on Nakasugi Douri in Asagaya. This photo was taken near the Minami Asagaya station of the Marunouchi line and the Suginami Ward Assembly Hall, looking towards the JR Asagaya station.
While this blog celebrates the anarchy of ordinary gardeners and the [...]
7 Aug
Omatsuri in Tsukishima
Last weekend Tsukishima held a lively omasturi (festival) in the summer heat and humidity. The dog above is wearing a traditional happi, a short cotton jacket with a design showing group affiliation. Old and new Japan seemed to come together as this dog’s owner participated in this ancient ritual with his “chosen” family of two [...]
3 Aug
Summer flowers: commercial street and residence
Summer flowers are a wonderful distraction almost everywhere in Tokyo. Above a residential street inJiyūgaoka. Below a flowering tree on a commercial street in Shinjuku. I don’t know the names of either plant. Does anyone know?
19 Jun
Operation Flower, crime prevention in Suginami
A friend in San Francisco sent me this Reuters news story about a municipal government program in Suginami ward to plant flowers facing the street as a crime prevention measure. The article cites a city official saying, “The best way to prevent crime is to have more people on the lookout.” According to city officials, [...]
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