Musashi-Kosugi about 60 years ago and today

History of Musashi-Kosugi

On the right bank of the Tama River, which flows dividing Tokyo and Kawasaki, a lowland with almost no slope spreads out. Musashi-Kosugi Station stands on that lowland. Only one point to the east stands out in height. While the station's point is 8.3 m, the north 7.9 m, the west 7.6 m and the south 7.2 m, all within the 7 m to 8 m range, the east, close to the Tama River, drops to 6.5 m. Even so, the gap from the highest point does not reach 2 m, and the town sits on a single plane that tilts quietly toward the river. The place name Kosugi was known early on as a post town on the Nakahara Kaido, the road linking Edo and Nakahara in Sagami. At the beginning of the Edo period a residence for the shogun to rest and stay was placed along the road, and people came and went at this key point where the road and the river ferry crossed. The era when the road was the backbone of the land was long, and the three-stage replacement, in which a railway station was built, factories gathered around it, and then the factories left and tall buildings went up, all took place after the start of the modern age.

A post town on the road and a factory town

In the aerial photograph from around 1936-42, the left third of the frame has no data and is blank gray. You can read the range from the center to the right. The Tama River runs diagonally from the upper right to the lower right; the streak of water is dark and thin, and the riverbed shining white on both sides is wide. A line of tracks passes up and down through the center of the frame, and slightly left of the center another line wraps around in a large arc. Inside and outside that arc there are several corners where long, narrow buildings of the same shape line up facing the same direction, mixed with several buildings with large roofs shining white. These are factory buildings. In the upper middle of the frame there is also a lot where long, narrow buildings are lined up, and the rest of the land is filled with small lots of fields. Settlements only continue thinly along the roads, and a white straight line extends diagonally from the lower left toward the center. The right side across the river is also fields and settlements.

The 1945-50 photograph has no missing parts, and the whole frame can be read. A thick straight line pierces the center diagonally from northeast to southwest, and partway along it a line draws a large arc and joins. The area held in the arc is the factory zone, where a single black circular structure sits in a wide site and long, narrow buildings are lined up around it. Rows of buildings of the same shape can also be seen from the lower middle to the lower right of the frame. The left half is wide with lots of fields in a grid, and the rows of houses are dense only at the upper left. The water surface of the Tama River is thick and dark in this era, and the riverbeds on both banks continue as bright bands. Town, fields and factories stand shoulder to shoulder within the same frame.

It was in 1673 that the post station of Kosugi Village was put in order. With the enforcement of the municipal system in 1889, six villages, including Kosugi Village and Kamimaruko Village, were combined to form Nakahara Village. Nakahara Village merged with Sumiyoshi Village in 1925 to become Nakahara Town, and merged with the City of Kawasaki in 1933. It was in 1972, when the City of Kawasaki became a designated city, that the name Nakahara was given to a ward.

It was in April 1943 that the town names of Kosugi were finely divided. Kosugi was divided into three towns, Kosugi-machi 1-3-chome, Kosugi-jinya-cho 1 and 2-chome and Kosugi-goten-cho 1 and 2-chome, and the names Jinya and Goten, which had been sections of the village, remained as they were in the town names. In the same month, Shin-maruko-machi, Shin-maruko-higashi 1-3-chome, Maruko-dori 1 and 2-chome and others were also divided off from neighboring Kamimaruko. The platforms of the Yokosuka Line are on the Shin-maruko-higashi side. In Kosugi-jinya-cho, the residential address system was put into effect on September 30, 1991, and the extent of 1 and 2-chome was fixed by incorporating the land of Kosugi that had been inside the old embankment.

When the rows of houses fill in

1961-69 is the era that serves as the entrance to this location. The lots of fields are pushed to the left edge and the corners of the frame, and rows of houses fill most of the view. The factory site keeps its outline while increasing its buildings, and the black circular structure appears in the same position. The streak of water of the Tama River has become thinner, and grid lots have been drawn on the riverbeds on both sides, which have begun to be used as sports grounds. On the left side of the frame two round shapes line up, and outlines that look like a stadium and a ballpark can be read. Two bridges crossing the river can be counted in the upper part and one in the lower part. The Tokyo side across the river is also filled with houses, and near the river at the right edge rows of buildings with large roofs line up.

1974-78 has color, and the way the land is used becomes easier to read. The water of the Tama River becomes a greenish band, and the riverbeds on both banks are dyed yellowish brown. The large roofs of the factories shine white, and the way long, narrow buildings line up in parallel becomes clear. The black circular structure remains in the same position, and in the photograph of this era it appears as a dark green circle with a bright ring at its edge. On the left side yellowish-brown lots of fields still remain here and there, and an oval track can be seen in the upper left corner. A dense cluster of low buildings lies around the station, and the factories form the skeleton of the town.

A muddy river and blue roofs

The 1979-83 photograph sinks into brown overall, with the color of a season when plants have withered. The water of the Tama River has changed to a muddy yellowish brown, and the water has spread onto the inner side of the riverbeds and grown wider. On the factory site, finely folded roofs line up in one corner of the large white roofs, and a shape like the teeth of a saw can be read from above. Some of the lots on the left side that were fields remain square as brown bare ground. However, the photograph records only the width the water reached on that day. If you want to know the range of assumed flooding, the City of Kawasaki's official hazard map is provided separately.

In 1984-86 the water returns to a thin greenish streak, and the riverbeds on both banks again show their yellowish-brown width. Buildings with blue roofs are added to the factory site, and in the upper left of the frame a row of buildings with red roofs also appears. Brown round sports grounds line up here and there on the riverbed.

In 1987-90 the river water again becomes muddy and widens, but the factory site is as it was. The large white roofs, the blue roofs and the black circular structure line up in the same arrangement, and the area around them is filled without gaps with low buildings. In the middle of the left side a ballpark with green turf and a brown infield appears. Even if you zoom in around the station, nothing tall appears.

A station area that grew upward

There are two reasons why the direction of this town changed. One is the railway. To what had been a transfer station where the Tokyu Toyoko Line and the Nambu Line cross, the platforms of the Yokosuka Line were added in 2010, and it became a station from which you can reach central Tokyo without changing trains. The other is the relocation of factories. The wide site held in the arc of the tracks became vacant in one piece, and it became land for building tall buildings. Something that hardly happens on finely divided land progressed all at once because a single factory left at one time. In 2014 a large commercial facility opened in a corner of the former factory site, and a place for shopping was created on the east side of the station.

In today's photograph, from the north of the station to the center, tall buildings that appear dark navy stand in a cluster. The long, narrow shadows the buildings throw on the ground overlap one another, only that area of the frame sinks dark, and if you zoom in you can count the buildings one by one. The place where the black circular structure and the long, narrow buildings once lined up has been replaced by large flat-roofed buildings and square lots, and the circular structure has disappeared. The arc of the tracks itself remains, and if you overlay it on the 1945-50 photograph it curves the same way. This means only the framework of the town was carried over, and everything sitting on top of it was replaced. In the middle of the left side a stadium with a blue track and a ballpark with a brown infield line up, and their shapes have hardly moved since 1987-90. The Tama River side is also quiet, with a thin streak of water and grassland and brown sports grounds lined up on the right bank.

In a residential area of Kosugi-machi 2-chome, the value more than doubled in 14 years. This point, about 590 m from the location, was 430,000 yen per square meter in 2012 and is 905,000 yen in the 2026 official land prices (Chika Koji). In the record, the former is the lowest and the latter the highest. It is a pattern in which high values came in the years after tall buildings went up on the land the factories left and one more line was added to the station.