Fuchu (Former US Military Base) about 60 years ago and today

History of Fuchu (Former US Military Base)

To the northeast of central Fuchu, there is an area where an art museum, a theater, lifelong learning facilities and a densely green park are gathered together. This land was opened before the war as an army fuel depot and was used after the war as the US military's Fuchu Air Station. In the aerial photographs, a lot where long, narrow buildings line up in a grid appears in the upper right of the frame, and with each era it breaks down and is replaced by woods and buildings with large roofs. The large oval of a racecourse lies at the bottom of the frame, and it hardly changes shape from the first era. A lot that moves and a lot that does not share one frame.

The fuel depot and the air station

According to materials from the City of Fuchu, it was in May 1939 that the Ministry of the Army placed the Army Fuel Depot on this land. In September 1945 the US military requisitioned 60.8 hectares and began using it as Fuchu Air Station. In July 1957, 7.3 hectares were returned as land for the Japan Air Self-Defense Force, and parts were also returned in 1965 and 1967. Although the facility was cut back little by little, most of it was in the hands of the US military until 1975.

Fuchu Station lies in the middle of the left side of the frame. It was in October 1916 that the Keio Electric Tramway ran trains between Shinjuku and Fuchu, and the station opened more than 20 years earlier than the fuel depot.

In the upper right of the 1961-69 photograph, at a position away to the northeast of Fuchu Station, there is a lot where long, narrow buildings line up in many rows facing the same way, with straight roads running between them in a grid. While the roofs of the surrounding houses are scattered in all sizes, in this lot buildings of the same shape line up at equal intervals. To its north, lots of fields still remain widely, and in the upper right corner a lot enclosed in a pentagon, a dense mass of woods and an oval track can be seen. In the center a road runs diagonally from the upper left to the right, with rows of houses along both sides.

The middle of the bottom of the frame is occupied by the large oval of the racecourse. According to materials from the Japan Racing Association, Tokyo Racecourse was opened in 1933, and all of the town area of Hiyoshi-cho in the City of Fuchu is the racecourse and related facilities. Inside the oval there is another small oval, and on the north side long, narrow buildings with white roofs line up in many rows. Factory buildings are grouped in the lower left, and fields still remain in the lower right.

Return and three uses

A road running straight east to west south of the racecourse newly appears in the 1974-78 photograph. It is the Chuo Expressway, which the materials from the Japan Racing Association describe as running behind the backstretch of the racecourse, and it is not yet in the 1961-69 photograph. In this era the frame appears blue in the upper left, brown in the middle and yellowish green in the upper right, but the rows of buildings in the upper right still remain. Beside the woods in the upper right, the fan shape of a baseball field appears reddish brown.

In June 1975, 54.1 hectares of Fuchu Air Station were returned, excluding the US military's communications facility. In 1976 a national council set out a policy of handling the returned land by dividing it into three: use by local public bodies, use by government-related organizations, and reserved land, and in 1981 it put together an outline allocating it to land for parks, land for public and public-interest facilities, land for the Self-Defense Forces, and reserved land.

In the 1979-83 and 1984-86 photographs, the rows of long, narrow buildings in the upper right remain only in the northern part, and in the southern part they begin to be replaced by buildings with large roofs and vacant land. The woods in the upper right corner appear in a reddish-brown color in 1979-83 and return to dark green in 1984-86. In 1987-90, while part of the rows remains, several patches of bright bare ground open between them. It is the figure of the grid layout in the middle of being cut up little by little into other uses.

Parks and land left behind

Onto the returned land came JASDF Fuchu Air Base, the Tokyo Metropolitan Fuchu-no-Mori Park, the Lifelong Learning Center, the Fuchu-no-Mori Shimin Seien, Heiwa-no-Mori Park, Sengen Junior High School, and roads such as Bijutsukan-dori. Fuchu-no-Mori Park opened in June 1991 as a park laid out on part of the former site of the Fuchu base. In July 1996 the Shimin Seien opened, and the uses of the returned land, excluding the reserved land, were decided.

However, not everything was filled. About 14.9 hectares surrounding the US military's communications facility were left as national reserved land and went unused for a long time. The city's materials record that trees such as cherry trees planted before the return were left unattended, and woods grew from them. In 2008 the city submitted to the national government a land use plan premised on the relocation of the National Institute of Health Sciences and the construction of national public servants' housing, but from 2011 to 2012 both were canceled. The former site of the communications facility was returned to Japan in September 2021, and in June 2025 the city again submitted to the national government a land use plan combining the reserved land and the former site of the communications facility.

In the middle of the left side, around Fuchu Station, tall buildings are clustered in today's photograph. The streetscape where low roofs stood eave to eave in 1961-69 has been replaced by a mass of tall buildings. The lot in the upper right is divided into a band of dark green woods, public buildings with large roofs and wide paved surfaces. Hardly any of the long, narrow buildings that lined up in a grid in 1961-69 remain. A building with a row of large gray and white roofs stands in the southern part of the lot where the grid was, just northeast of the center, and a band of woods edges its north side. The woods in the upper right corner keep their shape; at the racecourse below, the turf inside appears green, and the rows of long, narrow buildings with white roofs on the north side also face the same way in the same position as in 1961-69. The factory buildings in the lower left also remain grouped in the same place while changing shape. South of the racecourse, the Chuo Expressway, which first appeared in 1974-78, runs along the same straight line, and beyond it, at the bottom edge of the frame, large factory buildings line up.

The record of official land prices (Chika Koji) starts at 250,000 yen per square meter in 1983 at a standard residential site in Hachiman-cho 2-chome, and up to the 2026 publication, 700,000 yen in 1988 is the highest.