Tennozu about 60 years ago and today

History of Tennozu

Tennozu is a rectangular island lying southeast of Shinagawa Station. It is surrounded by canals on all sides and is connected to the land only by bridges. The su in the name is a word for a shallow rise in the water, and in the Edo period this area was tidal flats and shallows spreading where the Meguro River flows out to the sea. At the end of the Edo period, gun batteries (daiba) were built off Shinagawa, and from the Meiji era into the 1920s the reclamation of Tokyo Bay went ahead. This island, which turned water into land, was given its shape from the start not as a place for people to live but as land for receiving cargo from ships.

Flat ground with nothing but seawalls

In the aerial photograph from around 1936-42, the outline of the island is already drawn in straight lines. A thin white band runs north-south along the eastern edge, and everything outside it is open sea. The area inside the band is flat ground with no streets or buildings, crossed only by a single thin diagonal line. At the northern end alone, a square lot appears darker than its surroundings, and small shadows cluster inside it. Several small square islands edged with straight lines float on the sea outside the island. They are the remains of the gun batteries built off Shinagawa at the end of the Edo period, and islands of the same origin also remain on the Daiba side. The seawall comes first, and the use is decided later. The order of time on reclaimed land is captured just as it is in this one photograph.

In 1945-50, the shape of the island becomes much easier to read. Its outline is a polygon with cut corners, and only the northeastern edge juts diagonally out into the sea. A single white road runs on the ground from the north side down to the southeast, bends partway, and passes through to the south. With that road as a backbone, long, narrow buildings appear on the northeast side in rows of a few each. On the southwest side, too, hut-like buildings gather facing the same way, but the ground between them stays wide and pale gray, with only the lines of the lots drawn faintly. On the water south of the island, many long, narrow white rows reach out toward the open sea. On the land to the west across the canal, roofs that look like warehouses stand densely, and the town area of Shinagawa and a bundle of tracks spreading like a fan continue behind them. A thin bridge spans the western canal, and the road connecting the island to the land can be confirmed. This shows a time when the far shore became busy before the island did.

An island of tanks and lighters

The 1961-69 photograph captures the time when the island was filled with industrial equipment. Toward the north, round storage tanks stand in rows, and if you count them, more than ten stand grouped together. In the middle, a wide lot that appears darker than its surroundings is left, and along the western edge long, narrow warehouses continue at regular intervals. In the eastern canal, square lighters are moored linked like beads on a string, stopped as if waiting for cargo. From the eastern edge of the island, a single bridge crosses the canal straight to the opposite shore. On the eastern bank of the canal, too, cylindrical tanks and long buildings line up, and you can read that the island and the opposite shore form one continuous industrial zone. On the water in the east of the frame, streak-like shadows spread in many layers, but you cannot tell what they are from the photograph alone.

Ground filling up with warehouses

The 1974-78 photograph is the first color aerial photograph at this island. The canal water appears deep green, and the boundary with the land is clearly divided. The northwestern half is packed tightly with long-roofed buildings. In the northeastern corner, things like white boxes are piled up finely, forming a pattern of even grains. Meanwhile, from the middle toward the south a large area of ocher bare ground remains, occupying almost the same place as the wide lot that appeared dark in the 1961-69 photograph. The difference in color shows directly that the land preparation of this island did not finish all at once. A long, narrow structure crossing the eastern part of the island diagonally runs in the same direction in this era too. On the east bank across the canal, round white tanks line up, still standing in the same positions as in 1961-69. Small boats float here and there on the water. In the 1979-83 photograph the water takes on an ocher tone, and the density of buildings rises further. In 1984-86 the water appears deep blue, and lighters are moored in a cluster in the western canal. By the 1987-90 photograph, the ground of the island can hardly be seen for the buildings and the piled-up boxes. If you compare the same lots across the four eras, you can read the order in which the buildings were rebuilt and grew larger.

The island where two stations came

It was the railway that changed the character of the island. In 1992 Tennozu Isle Station opened on the Tokyo Monorail Haneda Line, and a flow of people was added to the island of ships and freight. In 2001 a station on the Rinkai Line of Tokyo Waterfront Area Rapid Transit was also set up, so two sets of ticket gates came to stand side by side on the north side of the island. The practice of keeping warehouse buildings while replacing what is inside also spread, and buildings for storing cargo changed their role into places where people gather.

In the aerial photograph as of 2026, large office and mixed-use buildings gather in the northern half of the island, and a wide green space of lawn and trees opens in a corner to the south. An elevated structure runs north-south through the eastern edge, and the bridge that crossed the canal in 1961-69 has been replaced, in almost the same position, by a bridge with a blue frame. On the eastern pier across the canal, boxes of many colors stand in neat lines, and the high-rise buildings that grew up at the east exit of Shinagawa Station stand at the upper left of the frame. The looped approach of a bridge crossing the bay and a square island covered with trees are in the northeastern corner. The outline of the reclamation has hardly changed since around 1936-42, and the shape of the island itself is the oldest trace.

The ground height is 2.8 m at the measuring point in the center of the island. The south and the west are also 2.8 m, while the east is 3.8 m and the north is 4.6 m, slightly higher. The difference is about 2 m, and there is no relief that could be called a slope. It is low land surrounded by water. The assumptions for heavy rain and storm surges are shown on a map that Shinagawa Ward has colored by zone for each lot number. Check them against the positions of the buildings on the island that matter to you. As a clue to prices, there is a residential observation point for the official land prices (Chika Koji) in Higashi-Shinagawa 1-chome, about 500 m from the island. If you take the two ends of the record up to the 2026 publication, 2013 is 700,000 yen per square meter and 2026 is 1,490,000 yen.

Placing what happened in order of year gives the following.

As you move through the eras, keeping your eyes on the following places makes the changes easier to grasp.