Early 20th Century Japanese Cityscape

[Sakuragi Miniatures]

This is an April 1939 photo of the Daiichi Bank Yokohama Branch from "Yokohama City Tram" by Okada Seiichi and Sawauchi Kazuaki. This is downtown Yokohama, one of Japan’s major cities and primary ports, the roads appear to be paved, and there are horse carts laden with traditional straw-wrapped tawara rice bales alongside a street car but no automobiles on the street. The Yokohama Electric Railway operated from 1904 to 1972; its function has been replaced by city buses and the subway. I think its interesting from a gaming perspective because gamers who typically play European settings already have these buildings and maybe the street car. To make it Japan-specific you'd just need people in traditional Japanese clothing alongside your suit and fedora wearing gangster and g-man miniatures, and the tawara rice bales.


I took a photo of the bank in 2022 before purchasing the book so I didn’t match the angle. The bank was built in 1929 and today is the Yokohama Creative Center. I’ll match this old image next time I’m in Yokohama.

[carlos marighela]

If you had told me that was some long demolished bank in 1930s Melbourne, I probably would have believed you. A bit short for a W Class tram (there are a couple of dozen still running in Melb) but similar.

[Sakuragi Miniatures]

I forgot to consider Australia, sorry! The tram itself looks to have been built in the 1910s, by the 1920s Yokohama used both short ones like this and ones that looked to be twice as long with an extra set of centerline doors. Those were on display in the Yokohama Tram Museum, along with the beer-hauling freight tram.

[HerbertTarkel]

This is a hidden treasure! Lovely terrain and work!

[Sakuragi Miniatures]

If you're interested in Japanese street scatter, I just added three new items to my online shop: Pillar Post Box (1934 Version), Cement Firefighting Water Basin and Wooden Trash Bin. Japanese policemen, a yurei ghost, and two kimono-wearing girls with bob cuts are also out.

https://www.wayfarerdaves.com/sakuragi-shoten/



(I'm still working on painting up the example, unlike the rest I had no spare resin prototypes for this one)

[Sakuragi Miniatures]

I'm still going through the material I gathered from last month's Tokyo & Yokohama research trip and thought you might be interested in seeing a bit on how beer was handled in the early 20th century. Yokohama is home to the Kirin Brewery and the Yokohama Tram Museum has a display of straw-wrapped glass beer bottles that would be shipped in pine wood boxes. These weighed about 80 kg each and would be transported around the city via open-topped freight street cars and barges. The freight trams were built on stripped down street car chassis.






1930 Yokohama street

[marianas_gamer]

Thanks, great stuff. We get to Yokohama fairly regularly. Now, I have some new places to visit.

[Sakuragi Miniatures]

Thanks, great stuff. We get to Yokohama fairly regularly. Now, I have some new places to visit.

That's good, do you live in Japan as well? Yokohama has become a real treasure to me, it has so many historic buildings and points of interest and the number keeps going up as I learn more.

Have you been to the former Yamate foreign district or done the downtown museums like the NYK, city archives, customs museum, and history museum?