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tsukiji is 70 years old

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

My favourite fish market just turned 70 years old.

wrapping up after a busy morning

According to a newspaper article, it was set up in its current place after a disaster wiped out the former one. The current site is now laden with problems: crowding (I can attest to that, having been through the thing at a snails pace on many occasions); 400 traffic accidents a year (I was knocked off my bike there two years ago by a careless driver); heavy metals and toxins all around (!); and a crumbling infrastructure that has caused blocks of concrete and chunks of metal to fall from the main buildings.

a quiet corner of the giant fish market

Time to move. Needless to say, different levels of government are fighting over what can be done about getting the market to a new home. And nothing much else is happening. So it's business as usual in the filthy, polluted, crowded, dangerous and wonderful Tsukiji. Happy birthday, fish market!

traffic cops required