Ameyoko market
Postwar black market alley turned bustling street market of street food, seafood, spices and bargain clothing.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Ameyoko market in Tokyo starts beside Ueno Station in 1946, amid rationing and ash, when vendors began boiling sweet potato candy on the sly and the alley earned its name, Candy Store Alley. It follows the market through the Korean War, when a flood of American military goods, chocolate, lighters, sunglasses, jeans, spawned a second alley nearby and a second meaning for the same word. That second alley took shape under a merchants' association organized by 1949, largely by former soldiers.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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