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May 21 2021 6 Comments

An old Tokyo office interior that’s now freshly laid tarmac

The fella below and his family before him used this wonderfully cluttered little office to run their business selling nuts and bolts. A small, but seemingly busy operation that had already been trading for about 80 years when I took this photo back in 2017.

an old and traditional tokyo office space

Four years on and it’s still going strong — the only difference being the man now works from a tiny desk squeezed into his storeroom down the street below. A space that does seem functional, but at the same time it’s a world away from the character-filled building he spent decades in. That’s now gone though, with nothing to mark those memories except some freshly laid tarmac.

Tokyo shop empty plot

Categorized: Photography

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Morgan says

    5/21/2021 at 11:43 am

    Incredible first shot. You should take him a copy I’m sure he’d be very happy with it.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      5/21/2021 at 8:01 pm

      Cheers, it was an incredible little place. And yeah, that’s a good call. Dare say he’d be very surprised.

      Reply
  2. Richard says

    5/22/2021 at 9:26 pm

    A very old, traditional style office. I bet he knew what all of those little boxes behind him contained!

    Reply
    • Lee says

      5/23/2021 at 3:55 pm

      Haha, I bet he did! It really was. A real shock to turn the corner and see it gone…

      Reply
  3. john says

    5/23/2021 at 6:47 am

    I hope the new bolt hole has space for his specialist library (interestingly angled as per the pie rack in the last entry).
    The tarmac does at least go nicely with the van, ‘carefully parked’ between the fridge and the air-con, themselves equally ‘palette compatible’ with its highlights. and as before, the cone!

    Reply
    • Lee says

      5/23/2021 at 3:59 pm

      Ah, wish I’d thought of bolt hole. Very good!

      Yes, everything fitted nicely in every sense, and a cone of some description or other almost seems to be a legal requisite.

      Reply

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