Mido-Suji
Ginkgo-lined boulevard widened from a narrow lane into a forty-meter avenue over a subway.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Mido-suji in Osaka starts with a six-meter lane so narrow two ox carts could barely pass, and the 1920s mayor, Hajime Seki, who wanted to widen it sevenfold as a Depression-era jobs scheme. It follows the ridicule he faced for a road critics joked was wide enough to land an airplane on, and the crews who dug Japan's first subway beneath the street by hand, fighting floods and cave-ins the whole way. Stand here now and you're walking over that same tunnel, dug with picks and oxen.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Kitamido
Rebuilt Buddhist hall on the site of a wartime firebombing, the temple that gave a grand boulevard its name.
Nakanoshima Park
Riverside island garden of rose beds ringed by century-old stone halls above a rushing subway.
Utsubo Park
Long, narrow city park shaped by a former WWII airfield runway, with a rose garden and tennis courts.
Namba Walk
Sprawling underground shopping street of arcades, cafes and plazas built in a nine-day rush before a World's Fair.
Shinsaibashi-Suji Shopping Street
Roofed pedestrian arcade of boutiques and eateries named for a bridge that no longer exists.
Tenjinbashi-suji Shopping Street ( 1 Chome )
Covered arcade of roughly eight hundred shops stretching over two kilometers, born as a riverside vegetable market.