There was a time when streetcars ran from Shibuya Station down Aoyama Street to Shimbashi and Tsukiji. A photo exhibition titled "The Streetcars That Ran Along Aoyama Street - From Photographs Photographed by Kaneko Yoshio II" began on October 28th at the Shibuya Shirane Memorial Museum of Local History and Literature.

Climbing Miyamasuzaka from Shibuya Station, you emerge onto Aoyama-dori. As you walk along this main street, constantly bustling with traffic, you might suddenly find yourself imagining that Toden trams once ran along this road. The photo exhibition "Toden that Ran Along Aoyama-dori - From Photographs Photographed by Kaneko Yoshio II," which has just opened at the Shibuya Shirane Memorial Museum of Local History and Literature, is an exhibition that will evoke fragments of such memories.

昭和43年 青山車庫（撮影＝金子芳夫）、現在の国連大学

The exhibition features photographs of Toden trams taken in the 1960s by Minato-ku photographer Yoshio Kaneko. The theme is the 6, 9, and 10 lines that ran from Shibuya Station along Aoyama Street towards Shinbashi, Tsukiji, and Jimbocho. The photographs capture the atmosphere of a city that can no longer be seen today - the Aoyama Depot (now the site of the United Nations University), the hustle and bustle at the bottom of Miyamasuzaka, and the signs of the shops lining the road.

The appeal of this exhibition is that alongside old photographs, there are also current photographs taken at the same locations. For example, the intersection in front of Aoyama Gakuin University, where the streetcar once passed. The buildings in the background have completely changed, but the slope of the road and the way the light falls somehow retain a resemblance to the time. The monochrome streetcar and the modern cityscape reflected in the glass. The contrast quietly speaks of the "layers of time" in the city of Shibuya.

Shibuya Station stop in 1968 (photo by Kaneko Yoshio)

Materials such as destination signs and route maps are also on display, allowing visitors to experience the atmosphere of the time when the streetcars were the "common people's means of transportation." When the sound of cars was replaced by the ringing of bells, the scenery of Shibuya may have been made up of a much larger number of people's strides than it is today. As new buildings are built and the city is repainted, this will be an opportunity to think about the "memories of the city" that should be preserved.

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