The city-center scene shifted in a blink from Somei-yoshino to double-petal cherries. Fewer people move through the streets, and the flowers too look somehow at a loss, but for those who still have to come to work they remain a sight that soothes, even for a moment.
The photo above looks toward Hirakawa-mon from past the Japan Meteorological Agency, on the way from Otemachi to Takebashi. Beyond the subway entrance at left (Takebashi Station Exit 2) you can see the Palaceside Building.
We like how the double-petal cherries look from this angle, and we introduce it on this blog every year
like this. For more than a year, though, Takebashi Station renovation and work around the Wake no Kiyomaro statue have kept the view from feeling crisp — a shame. In the photo above, construction fencing is still visible beyond Exit 2.
The same season, the same angle
: a 2015 photo = right, above= and a 2019 photo = right, below=, for comparison.
2015 was still before the works. The enduring cherries and fresh green matched beautifully.
2019 was mid-construction. You could not walk straight along the Uchibori-dori sidewalk; you had to loop toward the Wake no Kiyomaro statue to reach Hirakawa-mon and the Palaceside Building.
As you may notice in this year's photo, the Palaceside Building is easier to see. Yes — some of the trees behind Takebashi Station Exit 2, around the Wake no Kiyomaro statue, that held green leaves in 2015, are gone, likely because of the works. When the works finish, the trees should return and show their budding green again.