Sumida Park and Azumabashi Bridge

The red, three-arched Azumabashi Bridge runs between the two different halves of Sumida Park. On the Mukojima bank, the old cherry-tree embankment and part of the garden of the burned Mito-Tokugawa estate were preserved, while in Asakusa paths were laid out and grounds and a pool were created; the sports facilities remain here to this day. During Tokyo’s reconstruction after the Great Kanto Earthquake, the riverbank was set aside for a long open park so that fire would not spread farther through the dense development. The bridge and park were completed after the death of the head of this plan, while the former willow avenue gradually disappeared.

In seventeen sixty-nine, Iemon of Hanakawado and Genpachi of Shitaya-Ryusenji petitioned the Tokugawa shogunate. They sought a permanent crossing between Asakusa and Mukojima, a district on the opposite bank. The Takemachi Ferry operated here, while the nearest bridges lay far to the south. The Tokugawa shogunate was then cutting spending on bridge maintenance, so the petitioners proposed building a new one without money from the treasury.

Permission was granted to six townspeople. In seventeen seventy-four, they opened a wooden bridge almost on the same site as the present one. The toll was two mon; samurai were exempt from payment. From these mon, the owners were to repay the money they had invested and maintain the crossing. The Tokugawa shogunate built the other bridges across the Sumida River, but this one arose as a private enterprise.

Economy determined its fate. The new bridge cost about three times less than Ryogokubashi Bridge: its builders used shorter, thinner piles. In eighteen oh two, a flood carried away about forty-five meters of decking. The bridge holders took out a loan and restored the crossing, but private management did not last long. After people died when another bridge over the Sumida River, Eitaibashi Bridge, collapsed, the Tokugawa shogunate took this crossing under its administration. In eighteen eleven, builders replaced the bridge entirely, added supports, and used thicker timber. For Iemon and Genpachi’s venture, this meant the end: the townspeople had secured the crossing and maintained it for tolls for decades, then lost control of it.

At first, the bridge was officially called Okawabashi Bridge—the bridge over the Okawa, the “Great River,” as the Sumida River was commonly called then. Yet residents were already calling it Azumabashi Bridge during construction. Some derived the name from the word for “east”: the bridge led from Edo to the eastern bank. Another version connects the name with the road to Azuma Shrine, where Oto Tachibana was venerated—the heroine of an ancient legend who threw herself into the sea to save her husband Yamato Takeru’s campaign. According to the legend, his cry, “Oh, my wife,” gave the shrine its name. This story belongs to a sea inlet, and only the road to the shrine may have remained here. There is no single proven explanation for the name. In eighteen seventy-six, the familiar name Azumabashi Bridge was made official.

The red bridge and Sumida Park acquired their present layout after one catastrophe. During the Great Kanto Earthquake of nineteen twenty-three, the wooden deck of the iron Azumabashi Bridge that stood then burned; the fire destroyed almost the entire old Asakusa district. Shinpei Goto, minister of home affairs and head of the agency for rebuilding the capital, pressed for the reconstruction of streets, bridges, and open spaces. The fire showed that parks and squares could stop its spread, and the plan included three large reconstruction parks. The longest of them was laid out along both banks of the Sumida River.

Parliament sharply reduced the budget proposed by Shinpei Goto. Shinpei Goto himself died in nineteen twenty-nine and did not see the work completed. Two years later, Sumida Park opened and the present three-arched Azumabashi Bridge was finished.

The two banks were arranged differently. On the Mukojima side, the old cherry-tree embankment was restored, and part of the garden of the burned estate of the Mito-Tokugawa clan was preserved. On the Asakusa side, willows were planted, paths laid out, grounds and a pool built. The willows of the former avenue disappeared, but the sports facilities remain here to this day. Since nineteen seventy-five, the two halves of the park have been listed as separate parks of Taito Ward and Sumida Ward. Between them lies a bridge whose name was made official in the nineteenth century and which follows almost the same line that Iemon and Genpachi chose for their toll crossing.