This photo was taken a while back during lunch. The larger gray building was designed and built around the older mahjong/hamburg joint. I guess, mahjong and hamburgs are booming business so the owners refused to sell their property. You used to be able to see lots of these situations, most recently the one at Yodobashi Akiba, but harder to find as building get older and must be torn down.
Jeez,
And I thought that building permits in Houston were awful.
This takes the prize.
May I ask your permission to use this photo in my presentation on selecting suitable adjacent land-uses? Its a work project.
Hank
Hank, sure go ahead and use the photo. If you need a hi res version let me know.
Great photo: a real classic.
One of my favorites of that ilk used to be that wooden shack of a whale restaurant (元祖くじら屋) tucked in a little blip in the side of 109 in Shibuya, that is, until they remodeled, modernized, and harmonized it with 109.
Another favorite used to be the White River (白川）love hotel behind the Kubo Building not far from Shinjuku Station.
I wonder where the owners of such property get the strength and fortitude to resist the yakuza jigaya who must surely have tried to “coax” the owners into ridding themselves of such “troublesome” property.
Maybe the White River Hotel was run by the yakuza.