Asakusa Hanayashiki

This guide to Asakusa Hanayashiki in Tokyo opens with the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake, when keepers at what was then one of Japan's most famous small zoos had to destroy their own animals rather than let the approaching fires reach them. It follows the grounds from an 1853 flower garden through that disaster and wartime ruin to their postwar rebuilding as a cramped rooftop amusement park, and the 1953 coaster a struggling ride-maker installed on the tiny plot. Listen for the memorial to the zoo's animals still standing on the grounds today.