Record producer and DJ Boogie Belgique assembled this crisp black-and-white footage of post-WWII Tokyo. The clips “take us for a ride down a shopping street in the Shinbashi district, past market stalls in Shibuya, alongside the river, and even into areas meant exclusively for the occupying American forces,” says Colin Marshall at Open Culture.
I’ve been to Tokyo a half a dozen times and the city shown here is unrecognizable to me.
Rocket News 24 has a lot of interesting speculation about the footage (commenters say the film is second unit footage for the movie Tokyo Joe, which came out in November of 1949).
Some things you don’t typically see in modern-day Tokyo: people walking around in geta sandals, military personnel being transported around in trucks, and streets that aren’t completely filled with cars.
One thing that hasn’t changed: salarymen. One thing that has changed: their hats are much less badass nowadays.