{Inter} Cultural Japan

Although the Fukagawa Edo Museum (Fukagawa Edo Shiryokan) is no match for the giant Edo-Tokyo Museum, it presents visitors with a very likeable display about old Edo.
In one hangar-like hall this museum features a full-scale reproduction of a riverside district in Fukagawa, the area where the museum stands.

[Fukagawa Edo Museum]

Although not far from the Basho Museum, this was not the Edo as Basho knew it: he would have been flabbergasted to see the rural area (fishponds and paddies) where he lived fully incorporated in the sprawling metropolis. This happened in the mid-eighteenth century when Fukagawa began to prosper economically.

The museum has realistically recreated the lifestyle of the people of the district - all details of the buildings and interiors are historically accurate.

There is a canal with a boathouse annex tavern; a fire tower; a rice store; a vegetable store; an oil wholesaler’s shop; a tenement house; these are interspersed with warehouses (kura) and street stalls.

Even the (outside) toilets and garbage dump have not been forgotten.

Other small touches adding life are a cat sleeping on the roof, and various sounds such as a barking dog and vendor shouting his wares.

Visitors first see the small town from above (one enters the hall from the third floor) and then descend to wander among the houses.

The only thing lacking in this piece of old Edo are its people, but strolling through the narrow streets, peeping into the houses, for a short while one can almost imagine oneself to be just that: a 19th century Edokko.

Tel: 03-3630-8625
Hrs: 9:30-17:00; CL 2nd and 4th Mon, NY (12/28-1/5)
Access: 5 min on foot from A3 exit of Kiyosumi-Shirakawa St on the O-Edo Line; 15 min. from Morishita Station on the Shinjuku Subway line; or 15 min. from Monzen-Nakamachi on the Tozai Subway line.
Note: There is an excellent English guide for sale.
In the same neighborhood: Basho Museum; Kiyosumi Gardens; Tomioka Hachiman Shrine. Or visit Basho’s haiku along the Sumida River.