Derelict Store, Ōokayama

May 27th, 2010By Category: Culture

I found this shop the other week right near my daughter Cocoa’s kindergarten in Ōokayama, one stop from our place on the Oimachi Line. Ōokayama is full of some interesting old architecture, some of it condemned and falling apart – like this particular gem, apparently a Singer Sewing Machines store in its time. Anyway, I went back there yesterday just prior to picking up Cocoa and took these photos.

The place is open to the street, yet – as per most Japanese derelict abodes – no squatters have ever lived there, and it looks like it had a party only once recently in the form of a two-litre bottle of shōchū that I discovered upstairs.

The building is completely collapsing and probably a dangerous place to explore when you’re not exactly a featherweight gaijin, but I found these closet doors (above left) covered in what looks like old ’60s or ’70s clippings. The tatami mats are still there but water-logged and buckled up, and there are gaping holes in the floor and ceiling; thank god it was decent weather. The two flights of stairs were death-traps in-the-waiting but still supported me in both directions. In the drawers were old clothes including kimonos, but no sewing machines that I could find.

The toilet downstairs was one of the ugliest I’ve yet seen, easily out-rivaling the worst JR station loos, and the lack of decent reading material made it even less attractive. I didn’t take too close a look at the hole itself. There were the remnants of shōji doors with torn and ripped washi paper, electrical cables dangling from the ceiling, and the feeling that even the ever-present Tokyo cockroaches had renounced this place. Ironically right next door is a popular take away eatery frequented by big groups of students from the university down the lane.

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Andrez Bergen is senior editor of Impact magazine in the UK. He’s a long-term writer on Japanese pop culture, music, anime, movies and weird stuff who has covered the space since 2001. Andrez also runs Tokyo-based IF? Records, makes music as Little Nobody, writes a personal blog called JapaneseCultureGoNow!, and can be found on Twitter @andreziffy

Author of this article

Andrez Bergen

Andrez Bergen is senior editor of Impact magazine in the UK. He’s a long-term writer on Japanese pop culture, music, anime, movies and weird stuff who has covered the space since 2001. Andrez also runs Tokyo-based IF? Records, makes music as Little Nobody, writes a personal blog called JapaneseCultureGoNow!, and can be found on Twitter @andreziffy

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Comments

  • Colton says:

    What a crap, useless article. An old building is the best you could dredge up? And your daughters name is Cocoa? Well done you for being so bloody inventive

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