Futako-Tamagawa about 60 years ago and today

History of Futako-Tamagawa

The Tama River flows while cutting the southern edge of Setagaya, leaving a wide lowland on its left bank. Futako-Tamagawa Station stands on that lowland, in the part closest to the river. The heights around the station divide into two steps. The north at 13.6 m, the station position at 12.9 m and the east at 12.7 m line up at around 13 m, and from there drop one step to 9 m in the south and 7.6 m in the west. The two low ones are both on the side facing the riverbed of the Tama River, and the step of more than 5 m is itself the mark of the river's cutting. The place name combines the names of two pieces of land across the river, with Futako on the opposite bank and Tamagawa on this bank side by side. Before a bridge was built it was a place connected by ferry, land where people crossing the river and people carrying gravel out of the riverbed came and went. The core of the town moved to the station area much later.

A white riverbed and a single bridge

In the c. 1936-42 aerial photograph, the Tama River cuts the frame diagonally from the upper left to the lower right. Its water channels are thin, and on both sides the riverbed of shining white gravel is surprisingly wide. The flow does not gather into one, splitting within the riverbed, going around sandbanks and rejoining. Only one bridge crosses the river in the frame, a road extends northeast from its foot, and rows of houses are dense only on both sides of that road. Outside, it is mostly lots of fields and paddies. Toward the upper right, a band of dark woods continues diagonally, and the boundary between the lowland and the plateau can be read as a line. It is the figure of an era when the foot of the bridge was the core of the town.

The 1945-50 photograph is fine-grained, and the state of the riverbed can be seen even better. The white of the gravel spreads further, and inside the riverbed long, narrow sandbanks remain like islands. There is still only one bridge, rows of houses on its northeast side have gained thickness, and in the upper right of the frame lots finely divided by roads begin to line up. On the opposite bank in the lower left, paddies and fields are wide, and houses only line up thinly along the roads. Across the same river, the way the town advances is completely different between the right bank and the left bank.

Lines drawn on the riverbed

1961-69 is the era included from the start on the older side of the slider at this location. Both banks are already filled with houses, the field lots have been pushed to the corners of the frame, and buildings come close up to the inside of the embankment line along the river. The riverbed has also changed: on sand that had been only white, faint grid lots have been drawn. In the upper left of the frame a small stream joins the Tama River, and a gravel riverbed also opens around that confluence.

In 1974-78 color arrives, and you can see what the lots on the riverbed are. In the upper left of the frame, where the riverbed is wide, several round shapes line up, with the soil of the infields appearing as brown circles. It is a riverbed laid out as sports grounds. The water channels are greenish and thin, and the contrast with the brown riverbed is clear. In the lower right of the frame, a wide motorway crosses the river at a high level, running diagonally through the urban areas on both banks.

The 1979-83 photograph is another face of the same river. The water has turned muddy yellowish brown, covering the sandbars and spreading across the full width of the riverbed. Only the midstream sandbar remains above the water like an island, and the sports grounds on the riverbed meet the water's edge with their green turf. It is a photograph from a day of high water, and opened after seeing the usual thinness of the water, it shows how much width this river naturally uses. At the same time, you can read that the water has not reached the streets outside the embankment. However, a single photograph shows only the range the water reached that day, and the official hazard map of Setagaya Ward shows how far inside and outside the embankment falls within the assumed flooding area.

In 1984-86 the water has receded, and the sandbars and grassland return. The sports grounds on the riverbed appear divided into brown infields and grassy outfields, and in the middle of the left bank a row of white buildings and lots divided into squares line up. At the left edge of the frame, a single large building with a blue roof stands out. By 1987-90 the use of the riverbed advances further. Below the center, reddish-brown square lots also line the edge of the riverbed, and on the bank a little right of the center a blue water surface and green sports grounds appear. The east side of the station is still occupied by low buildings and lots blanked out in white that look like parking lots, and nothing tall stands.

From an amusement park to a mixed-use complex

The character of this town is made up of the overlap of river leisure, shopping and the railway. The riverbed of the Tama River has long been a place for outings, an amusement park was placed along the river, and its name was also included in the station name. The amusement park closed in 1985, and its site later moved to another use. Its face as a shopping town came much earlier: in 1969 a department store opened on the east side of the station, becoming a forerunner of the form of placing large sales floors in the suburbs. The station name was changed to Futako-Tamagawa in 2000. Then in 2011 the first phase of a mixed-use complex opened in the block on the east side of the station, and the second phase was added in 2015. In a form that stacks offices, commercial facilities and housing in one block, the flow of people gathered at the transfer station between the Oimachi Line and the Den-en-toshi Line.

Rooftop green and thin water channels

In today's photograph, only one block east of the station differs in color tone. Several long, narrow rectangular buildings line up facing the same way, their roof surfaces appearing dark gray and standing out from the low white roofs around them. The station itself can be read as a long, narrow white roof, a large flat-roofed building continues to its southeast, and a green plaza sits on its roof. From above, if anything, you can see more easily that round turf and groves of trees are on top of a building. To its southeast there is a corner where groves and grassland spread, with a small water surface shining inside. Going back and forth with the 1987-90 photograph, you notice that the same position was low buildings and white parking lots. On the other hand, the river side has hardly moved. The water channels are thin, the sandbars white, and the grassland on the riverbed wide. The sports ground lots in the upper left have also not changed place since 1974-78. To the extent that the town has grown vertically, the composition makes the flatness of the riverbed stand out. Toward the bottom of the frame a building with a large white roof has been built, and the urban area on the opposite bank has also been filled without gaps.

The record of values only exists from 2016 on. For a residential site in Seta 1-chome, about 560 m from the location, the value was 615,000 yen per square meter in 2016 and 871,000 yen in 2026, and in the record up to the 2026 publication the former is the lowest and the latter the highest. It is a form in which the high price came in the years after the mixed-use complex opened in two phases.