Nishi Ginza, a new stylish way

Nishi Ginza opened in October 1958 (Showa 33) (the company was established in 1956), and it will celebrate its 60th anniversary this autumn. The background of the founding of Nish Ginza is illustrated in detail in Watashi no Ginza Monogatari (My Story of Ginza) (Chuokoron Jigyo Shuppan, 2010) by former president Masaichi Yanagisawa. I was also able to get in touch with the current President, Mr. Tokuji Yanagisawa, so allow me to introduce the corporate history along with my conversation with them.
It was in 1953 (Showa 28) that the project to fill in the Sotobori-gawa River running below Sukiyabashi Bridge and construct a highway. I was surprised, as had thought it was a more recent project. Therefore, Kimino-na-wa (Your Name) (a soap drama starring Keiji Sata and Keiko Kishi), which was sensationally popular 1952 and 1953, was staged in Sukiyabashi Bridge in its last days.
Reading Masaichi’s book, the following excerpt was an eye-opener.
“We had initially planned to construct a much larger building. It was supposed to be a twelve-story building with four basement floors, which would all be used as a garage [“garage” according to the original text, but perhaps warehouse]. The first and second floors above ground would be parking space, the next two floors would have a two-lane highway running through them (!), and the upper floors would have offices.”
It was called the “Sky Building Plan.” If a long building resembling the Great Wall of China had been constructed in the former Sotobori-gawa River area, the landscape of the western side of Ginza would have been significantly different from what it is today.

Kiyoshi Ichimura was appointed the first president of Nishi Ginza, which was to open in October 1958. Ichimura was the founder of San-ai (and also president of Ricoh). The structure of the building, with two basement floors and two floors above offering 60 stores, is close to what it is today, but according to the direct mail ad from the opening of the establishment, the store lineup included many long-established stores.
Kyukyodo, Motoki, Midoriya, Erien, Oonoya, Bunmeido, Seigetsudo, West, Tenichi, Homeishun… I also found a “Nishi Ginza News Café.”
An introduction of the café says “Unwind and watch the news drinking coffee or juice,” so I would imagine that they showed newsreels on a large screen.
The coffee shop “Bridge”, which is still in business today, had a copy that said “Paid Waiting Room” followed by a description of “various melodies to be heard through your personal earphones.” Therefore, this shop must have specialized in music. “Bridge” is famous as the shop that Kuniko Mukoda used for meetings.

Shin-Sukiyabashi (New Sukiyabashi) – the name is not often used anymore, but for a while after the old Sukiyabashi Bridge was replaced with the highway bridge, most people called it the new bridge. Looking closely at the picture in the article, I could perceive stairs going up the wall on the Yurakucho side, where an H.I.S. office is currently located, to the highway. “Back then, we could walk up to the highway using these stairs. There was some open space in the direction of Marion, or the then Asahi Shimbun building that was used as a parking lot,” the current president explained.
I recall seeing somewhere, celebrity portrait photographs of Nikkatsu movie stars, Yujiro Ishihara and Asahi Kobayashi, posing in front of imported cars parked in this area.
As indicated in the article, even after the highway was constructed, there must have been few cars in th streets. The highway was an “observation deck” as the title notes, and most nightscapes of Ginza then were taken from the spot.
In an album that they showed me at the office of Nishi Ginza (located inside the Tsukamoto Suyama Building across Nishi Ginza Street), I found a few pictures of celebrities playing storeowner for the day at an event celebrating the fifth anniversary of the establishment in 1963 (Showa 38). The photos showed Nana Kinomi, Kayoko Moriyama, Sanpei Hayashiya and boxer Hiroyuki Ebihara, celebrities who would often appeared on T.V. just when became a T.V. fan. It was when was in first or second grade, when I was happy being treated to a pudding or chocolate sundae next door, at Fujiya.
It might also have been around then that Nippon Broadcasting launched a satellite studio facing the small square on the Ginza side of the building. Then, a Takarakuji lottery ticket booth moved from Nihon Gekijo and is known as the Nishiginza Chance Center today. Another old store is the Sanrio store which has covered quite a large floor area from the 1980s. Including the Sanrio store, most of the stores carry items for women. 　
Nishi Ginza offered many ladies’ stores from the beginning, but I have heard that the “Nishi Ginza News Café” and “Bridge” were used by journalists from Asahi Shimbun to write or deliver their articles.
After the interview, I went to “Bridge” on the basement floor. I asked the waitress where Kuniko Mukoda used to sit and ordered a glass of iced coffee. Looking around, rugged-faced newspaper journalists were not to be seen, now that the newspaper was no longer in the area. Instead, there were two or three groups of young girls.
Glimpsing at their table, I could observe that they were not having tea or coffee, but a green round something… It must be the “melon pancake” on the top of the menu. It had a half-circle shape and the grid-like lines of a cantaloupe. It was indeed the “instagrammable” pancake.
It was not the kind of item that a 62-year old man would ordinarily order, but I felt somewhat relieved to see that a coffee shop that has survived sixty years since the opening of the building was adapting to the “new stylish way” of the times