A sloping road near the scramble crossing in front of Shibuya Station is called "Spain-zaka." About 100 meters long and three meters wide, it's managed by the Shibuya Ward Office.
A large number of eating and drinking establishments are located here, as well as miscellaneous shops, and the area is packed with junior high and high school students and tourists.
But it does not look that different from other similar roads in Tokyo. How did the Shibuya road get that nickname?
When people enter Spain-zaka from the Inokashira-dori street side, it is a gentle uphill slope. There are stores selling tapioca drinks originating in Taiwan, and young people take Instagrammable photos.
At the top of some slightly curved steps is Shibuya Parco, a building containing various stores for fashionable garments and accessories. The building is currently being remodeled.
Around the middle of the slope is a sign for a Spanish restaurant called Vidrio (pronounced Biidoro). The white walls of the restaurant contain elaborate designs. Is this restaurant the origin of the Spain-zaka nickname?
"I heard that the father of the owner of this building gave the street that nickname," an employee at the restaurant said. This was corroborated by Toyotoshi Uchida, 54, the owner of the three-story Uchida Building that contains the restaurant.
"It's true that my father is believed to be the person who nicknamed this street 'Spain-dori' avenue,'" Uchida said.
According to Uchida, his father Yasuo, who passed away in 2013, opened a coffee shop named Arabika in 1975 in the location where the Uchida Building stands now. The coffee shop was known for its Spanish-style interior.
Later, Yasuo was consulted by officials of Shibuya Parco about what to nickname the sloping road in front of his coffee shop. Spain-dori was the eventual choice.
Local people say the avenue originally had lines of private houses. In those years, the people who passed through were mainly going to the ward office building or other facilities atop the slope.
Because people flowed in from larger streets, the sloping area was once dubbed "Kenka Yokocho [quarrel lane]" or "Shoben Yokocho [pissing lane]."
After Shibuya Parco opened in 1973, trend-conscious people started gathering in the area. The nickname was chosen at a time when the atmosphere of the sloping road and the buildings there were changing.
"I overlapped the future here with the bright, open scenery in Spain," Yasuo said, explaining his yearning for the townscapes of Spain that he saw in photographs.
Yasuo built the Uchida Building in 1980 and put the coffee shop on the basement floor, predicting at the time that the location would be the center of a busy downtown. He also set up a stone monument by the building on which "Spain-zaka" is carved in Japanese.
That same year, Vidrio opened on the second floor of the building. Juraku Corp., which operates the restaurant, said it decided to open the restaurant there because officials of the company had heard there was a place called Spain-zaka in Shibuya.
The restaurant emphasized a Spanish atmosphere by, for example, displaying Spain's national flag and using red and yellow on its signboards. Though Spanish cuisine was not as well known as it is today, the restaurant became increasingly popular as a "Spanish restaurant on Spain-zaka."
Some local people began building European-style buildings in the area around Spain-zaka slope. One is owned by Hidemi Yokota, 59, the director general of Spain-dori Shotenkai, an association of business owners in the area.
There are red bricks on the white walls of the building, and its verandas have European-style railings. A careful look around the area reveals that a sizable number of Spanish-style buildings remain along Spain-zaka slope.
After the slope was nicknamed Spain-zaka, stores and other facilities attracting young people began concentrating in the area one after another. They included Cinema Rise, which led a boom of mini movie theaters and Louisette, a famous apparel shop selling clothes in a style called Shibuya Casual.
In 1993, Tokyo FM Shibuya Spain-zaka Studio opened on the first floor of the Shibuya Parco building. The studio became famous nationwide.
All of them are now gone. But according to Uchida, "The existence of the nickname may be why this slope became a place where shops and people gather."
Urban redevelopment projects are underway in Shibuya, on a scale said to occur once every 100 years. What does the future hold for the Spain-zaka slope?
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
