Utsunomiya Station East Exit about 60 years ago and today

History of Utsunomiya Station East Exit

If you leave by the East Exit and start walking east, just beyond Utsunomiya Station you enter blocks lined with tall buildings. The frame of this location has its center shifted a little east of the station, and the station yard passes vertically through the left part of the frame. In the black-and-white photograph, from just east of the yard to the center of the frame, lots of small fields filled almost everything. The area west of the station is the old town area, and to the east fields spread. The way to look at this location is to follow how that difference between left and right is filled in across the aerial photographs of two eras and today's photograph.

The place name Shukugo

The area east of the station has been called Shukugo (shuku means inn). Materials of the City of Utsunomiya explain that, because a highway toward Oshu passed nearby and medieval documents record the name "Shuku no Go", it is thought to come from there having been inns where travelers stayed. From the Edo period until 1889 it was Shukugo Village, and after that it became a town name of Utsunomiya. The part on the east side of the station is Higashi-Shukugo. The standard site of the official land prices (Chika Koji) is also within this place name, a residential site in Shukugo 5-chome.

The railway opened in 1885. The center of the castle town was west of the station, and the Tagawa River flows between it and the station. According to the city's materials, the station side of the Tagawa River lay across the river as seen from the castle town and was therefore called Kawamuko, and secondary residences of high-ranking retainers of the domain and group residences of foot soldiers were placed there. The area east of the tracks lay even further beyond, and the opening of an east exit of the station would come to be set out as an aim of the postwar land readjustment. The width of the tracks and the yard divided the east and west of the station.

A grid drawn on the fields

In the 1961-69 photograph, the thick band running vertically through the left part of the frame is the station yard. Many tracks are bundled together, on its west side rows of houses are densely packed, and further west the Tagawa River runs down in large bends. East of the band, in the center of the frame, small lots of fields in different shades line up over everything. Houses stand only sparsely along a few roads running east-west, and the one place where a cluster of houses can be seen together is slightly below the center. From the lower left of the frame to the upper right, a single thin line crosses the fields diagonally. In a place toward the right of the center there is a mass of black woods, and in the lower right a row of long buildings and a facility with an oval track can be seen.

The Station East Land Readjustment Project, carried out by the City of Utsunomiya in 1968, remade that east side. According to the city's explanation, its aims were the opening of an east exit of Utsunomiya Station and the improvement of urban functions around the station plaza. The project continued until 1979, and the replotting disposition was publicly announced in 1978.

The 1974-78 photograph shows it partway through. The fields have disappeared from the center of the frame, and straight streets have been drawn vertically and horizontally to form a brand-new grid. Many of the lots are still grass-colored vacant land, and houses have just begun to move in little by little along the roads. A thick road passes east-west through the center and extends to the right edge of the frame. The lower half of the frame was taken in a different tone and appears bright and whitish. In the lower left buildings with large white roofs line up, and the oval track at the lower right remains in the same place as in the previous era. The woods toward the right of the center also remain unchanged as a mass of green.

What gathered at the East Exit

The role of the station also grew. In 1982 the Tohoku Shinkansen opened, and Utsunomiya came to sit on a high-speed line linking Tokyo and Tohoku. The vacant land east of the station was divided into roads and residential lots by the land readjustment, and buildings moved into it one by one. Further, in a corner right beside the East Exit, the City of Utsunomiya went ahead with building a facility to serve as a hub of exchange and a plaza. Construction began in 2020, and in November 2022 the whole district held its town opening.

Then in August 2023, the Haga-Utsunomiya LRT (Light Line) opened. It is a streetcar running east from the East Exit of the station, and the city's plan made laying the track in the center of existing roads the basic approach. In the construction of the exchange hub facility, a pedestrian deck crossing over the LRT track was also assembled. The East Exit, the streetcar and the facility were put together as one piece of town planning.

In the center of the frame, vacant land can hardly be found anymore. The grid of streets drawn in 1974-78 remains with its direction and spacing kept, and in today's photograph its lots are filled with tall buildings and housing. Toward the left the white roofs of the station platforms continue north-south, and just east of them large flat-roofed buildings gather. Above the center there is a facility with a blue water surface, and if you move to the right a large roof with white stripes can be seen. West of the station, the Tagawa River runs south in large meanders along the left edge, and green edging follows both banks of the black streak of water.

Some things remain from the old eras. The woods toward the right of the center are in the same place as a mass of green in today's photograph too. The oval track at the lower right also appears without changing shape while surrounded by buildings, and just above it several apartment buildings of the same shape line up facing the same way. The thick road that passed east-west through the center in 1974-78 runs in the same position to the right edge in today's photograph too, and remains a thick line that stands out even within the grid. The group of buildings with large white roofs at the lower left also remains with the shape of its roofs almost kept.

The order of filling in did not necessarily start from the places near the station. In the upper right of the frame, rows of small houses lined up in good order occupy a corner already from the black-and-white era. By 1974-78, a site with buildings with red roofs in rows has been added there, and the number of houses has increased further. In the center of the frame at the same time, although the grid of roads had been drawn, many of the lots remain grass-colored vacant land. The upper right, away from the station, filled with houses first, and the grid just east of the station was filled with buildings later. In today's photograph the upper right too is covered with rows of houses, and only a site with a green lawn plaza appears as a square opening.

The official land price record for Shukugo 5-chome starts in 1993 at 295,000 yen per square meter, and the highest value up to the 2026 publication is this 1993 one. The lowest up to the 2026 publication is 109,000 yen in both 2012 and 2013; from 2014 to 2026 it has risen every year.