By Kevin Cooney
To me the single most stunning attribute of Tokyo is it's capacity for change. Sweeping changes, small nearly unnoticeable changes, shocking changes, silly changes, meaningless changes, my 8 years in the city are catalogued most not by the seasons or years but by things dissappearing, appearing and even reappearing. Tokyo is a constant work in progress. Like a painting whose neurotic creater feels impelled to keep fiddling with his master work and never gaining a sense of completion. Of course all major cities are the same in this way, but of the major world cities I've lived in none seems as constantly transformative as Tokyo. With all this change though, I'm not always sure the city is improving. Or perhaps I'm just too stubborn to change.
Long time expats, many longer than myself, mark their years in this city in remeniscent sentances like "There used to be this shop in omotesando with the best coffee." or "Remeber that buidling on the corner that looked like a broken down space ship?". Sometimes they are personal rememberances like "Mike, what a crazy guy he was. Hmmmm... whatever happened to him?" He went home. The building was torn down. The coffee place went out of business.
Some of the changes coincide with social or technological changes. I have ex-pat friends who remeber back to when 99% of the population had black hair. When you boarded a train an actual human being stamped your ticket instead of the magnet reading robots that guard the station gates today. My personal biggest sense of loss and rebirth was when the iconic Dojunkai Aoyama Apartments were torn down and replaced with the buzzing hive of commerce that is Omotesando Hills. The old, beautiful, ivy covered buidlings gave a sense of quiet to the street that is now gone. To be fair they were put up in 1927 and crumbling. Other ex-pats like me were livid when we heard it was being torn down for "improvement". As a nod to those upset by construction, they even designed the south east corner of the building to approximate the look of old building.
Now when I walk down Omotesando I have trouble recalling what it looked like before the face lift. And actually, I can even admit to be pleasantly surprised how well the buildings outdoor design looks. Not to mention the bladder saving public bathroom they've included. I mention the old landmark to a friend once, and he seemed surprised anything ever existed before Omotesando Hills. As though it had always been there, and the street the way it is today.
Frankly, I find it is the foreigners who lament these changes most. The locals seem endlessly verastile to put it in a positive way. After all the bustling metropolis we busy ourselves about was completely flattened twice in the last hundered years. Rebuilding seems almost an intrinisc part of the DNA of Tokyo. Forgetting the past and moving on a mission statement boldly declared in every new towering building site. Ive seen more than a few go up recently. Roppongi Hills, Tokyo Midtown were just the start. Now even more unthinkable are the current projects to build a new Tokyo Tower, a new Tuskiji Fishmarket and a new Kabuki-za
Sometimes I want to scream "Stop all this newness!" But to deny the ever evolving skyline of Tokyo is to miss the most essential characteristic of this city. Nothing stays the same for very long. Least of all me. I can't believe what a crotchety old timer I've become in just eight years.
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