A horse-drawn carriage has just passed through the Sakashita-mon gate, while three jinrikisha (rickshaws) are waiting for passengers. In the back the Kunaisho (Imperial Household) building can be seen. The Sakashita-mon was part of the original Edo Castle.

A wonderfully relaxed Ginza, full of empty space, with magnificent willow trees, a simple sandy road and a horse-drawn street car. It can hardly be any more different from the Ginza that we know today. Photographer Kimbei Kusakabe stood near what is now the Wako Building and pointed his camera towards Kyobashi. The small clock tower rising above the trees stood on the Ginza Branch of the Kyoya Watch Shop (京屋時計店の銀座支店時計塔). The simple yet elegant clock tower was for many years the symbol of Ginza and appears in many a nishiki-e (woodblock print). It was located on Ginza 4-chome, which at the time was seen as the end of Ginza Avenue.

Tokyo’s Shintomiza Theater (新富座) was managed by the legendary Morita Kanya (守田勘弥, 1846-1897), who introduced direct ticket sales—which used to be monopolized by theater teahouses—, bright lights and evening performances to the Japanese theater. His experiments and modernizations in both method and content made the Shintomiza Tokyo’s premier theater. When former US president Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) was invited to watch kabuki during his 1879 (Meiji 12) stay in Japan, it was this theater that he visited