When brushing up my novel I pulled up you site again. Imagine my surprise (and 15 sec of fame) in reading your adventures and my directions in locating the old Yoshiwara.

I will be doing the same in June when I come to Japan to do some hands-on research of the area. I plan to visit the Taito Ward office to see if they’ll give me any material on the yoshiwara, a prisoner of war camp I hope was located there; Arakawa camp 20-D, and the Great Tokyo Fire Raid.

There is also a National Defense Archive
over in Ebisu where I hope to get some maps of the war era.

I was wondering how you handle the photos and woodblocks on your site. I would like to include some vintage prints like the Great gate and the old maps of the quarter but I know all the woodblocks are owned and am not sure how to handle the reprint permission. (I assume the publisher, if I get one, will handle this but perhaps you have some advise. Today I’m trying to find a site other than Amazon, which will give me a glimpse of Japanese military uniforms.

Again, glad the directions were of help and to posting me to the world.

Keep up the good work.

Warmest Regards;

marc Hagan

Daimon is the Great Gate and the curvy road off to your right was the curving entrance to Yoshiwara.

Where it straightens out was where the Great Gate stood and the straight road ahead was the center Nakanocho main street. Three cross streets comprised the interior and then the back wall.

The Nihon (something) street – if you had turned right there – was the boundary right wall. The left boundary wall ran between today’s 3-chome and 61-chome.

An old 1700 map can be found at
http://www.kurapaso.net/edo/edo_03-2.html

regards;

marc