In 1887 Gozo Tateno, then the Governor of
Osaka Prefecture, set his eye on the Shinsekai
area as a possible location for his dream
of a great city park. This is what a contemporary
writer wrote about Shinsekai.
"The Rise of Shinsekai "(this says
about history of Shinsekai) says, "
At the end of the 1880's, the area was farmland.
North of Nago-Bashi Bridge up to Nippon=Bashi
Bridgh, there were no houses but some 30
to 40 cheap inns for the homeless. West of
the area, the village of Imamiya extended
southwestwards. At the village center, a
public bulletin board used decades ago still
sttod. In 1885, the Nankai Railway was built
from there up to Yamato-gawa River via Imamiya
and in 1889 the kansai railway was also built.
Still, at around the turn of the 20th century,
most of the area was largely unpopulated
woods and fields, scaringly deserted even
during the daytime."
 |
| (Shinsekai in 1899) |
Governor Tateno's dream of a city park did
not come true. It was left for his successors
to follow up.
In the meantime, the population of Osaka
continued to grow. One of the private sector
developers sensed what the Prefecture Government
had in mind to develop South Osaka, and built
in 1888 a wooden 5story tower with a roof-top
observation deck and an amusement facility
called " Chobo-kaku" or Viewing
Tower in the south of what is Namba Station
today.
 |
| (Chobo-kaku) |
In 1889, "Kairaku-en Shopping Club"
or Pleasure Shopping Club was built. We can
say it was a forerunner of a fair. When we
look at the contemporary map, it was near
the present north entrance of Shinsekai. It was a fairly large shopping and amusement
facility. The prospectus said that the facility
was for an exhibition by the merchants both
domestic and abroad as well as for entertainment
and pleasure.
In addition to the five-storied western style
main building with a dome-shaped rooftop
observation deck, the 16,500 square meters
site had an exhibition hall for both home
and international products and a demonstration
hall for steam power as well as exhibition
halls of a variety of machines. There were
more exhibition halls for diversetastes of
visitors.
Imamiya Business Club also had a restaurant
on water, a lounge, a hot spring, a stage
for performance and a billiard. Anyone could
enter freely when one paid entrance fee.
A garden was added next door to make it a
one-stop amusement centre. But its life ended
after only 12 years. The site was sold to
the city of Osaka to provide the site for
another fair.
