The water seeps through the cracks of a concrete ceiling, full of pipes and exposed wires, and collects in a pool in the middle of a dark hallway lined with old-fashioned pubs, ethnic eateries, a psychic parlor and vendors selling cheap wristwatches and pornographic DVDs .
An elderly woman resignedly vacuums the pool as pedestrians walk past her to the ticket gates of an adjacent subway station, probably unaware that they are trudging through Japan’s oldest surviving underground shopping street, which was built in 1955.
The hordes of tourists above ground may not be aware of it, but this underground arcade in Tokyo’s traditional shopping and entertainment district of Asakusa retains a good dose of Showa Era (1926-89) nostalgia and bears witness to a period when the capital dug deeper and deeper to develop a vast underground network of infrastructure to serve the growing population.
