File:JapanHomes035 BLOCK OF CHEAP TENEMENTS IN TOKIO.jpg

English: From original book: "Since the revolution of 1868 there has appeared a new style of building in Tokio, in which a continuous row of tenements is under one roof, and each tenement has its own separate entrance directly upon the street. Fig. 35 gives a sketch of a row of these tenements. These blocks, nearly always of one story, are now quite common in various parts of Tokio. In the rear is provided a small plot for each tenement, which may be used for a garden. People of small means, but by no means the poorer classes, generally occupy these dwellings. I was informed by an old resident of Tokio that only since the revolution have houses been built with their doors or main entrances opening directly on the street. This form of house is certainly convenient and economical, and is destined to be a common feature of house-building in the future. On the business streets similar rows of buildings are seen, though generally each shop is an independent building, abutting directly to the next; and in the case of all the smaller shops, and indeed of many of the larger ones, the dwelling and shop are one, the goods being displayed in the room on the street, while the family occupy the back rooms. While one is bartering at a shop, the whole front being open, he may often catch a glimpse of the family in the back room at dinner, and may look entirely through a building to a garden beyond. It is a source of amazement to a foreigner to find in the rear of a row of dull and sombre business-houses independent dwellings, with rooms of exquisite taste and cleanliness. I remember, in one of the busiest streets of Tokio, passing through a lithographer's establishment, with the inky presses and inky workmen in full activity, and coming upon the choicest of tiny gardens and, after crossing a miniature foot-bridge, to a house of rare beauty and finish. It is customary for the common merchant to live under the same roof with the shop, or in a closely contiguous building; though in Tokio, more than elsewhere, I was informed it is the custom among the wealthy merchants to have their houses in the suburbs of the city, at some distance from their place of business. "