THE ZEIT GIST

Welcome to Misery Park
Officials have spent years turning a park into a public
space that doesn't want visitors
By MONTY DiPIETROSpecial to The Japan Times
Shinjuku's Kabukicho is among the world's largest adult entertainment
districts, with thousands of bars and sex clubs providing a cornucopia ofnighttime entertainment options.

A visitor to the new-look Okubo Park, in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward. MONTYMONTY DiPITERO PHOTO

It is not a quiet place -- kamikaze taxicabs rocket the narrow streets, a hugevideo screen blares scenes from the latest Koma Theater extravaganza andoutdoor batting centers ricochet with the crack of aluminum smacking 100km fastballs. Meanwhile, tucked away amid the debauchery and cacophony,
up in the northwest corner of Kabukicho, is a 100-meter-long stretch ofasphalt where neighborhood Japanese, Korean and Chinese teenagers
sometimes meet to play pickup games of soccer and basketball: Okubo Park.
Some 18 months ago, city authorities decided Kabukicho needed cleaning up.
So what did they do? They shut down Okubo Park.
The so-called "Kabukicho Renaissance" also involved police raids on areaclubs and brothels, with a significant number of foreigners rounded up for
immigration violations. But the question remains -- why close Okubo Park,
possibly the only place in the area where wholesome, community activity wastaking place?
"The basketball and soccer playing was making noise," explains Kasuke Nihei
of the Shinjuku Ward Parks Department.
"Sometimes the basketball playing began quite early in the morning,"
continued Nihei. "But probably the biggest problem with the park was people
drinking alcohol there, and 'address unidentified' (a euphemism for homeless)people using the park to cook food and eat. The Kabukicho Shopping Center
Promotion Association and a neighborhood residents' committee bothcomplained about this, and so we closed the park."
The closure in October 2005 followed a series of initiatives which made thepark less and less accommodating. Initially -- and this can still be seen in an
on-site sign display board -- Okubo Park was a pleasant-looking place, withgrassy areas, a row of hedges and a children's swing set. Through the 1990s,
as the number of homeless increased, the playground and greenery wereremoved, and the surface was paved over, making it less comfortable forthose who would camp there in cardboard boxes.
Maybe the city underestimated homeless people's capacity for misery, as anumber of cardboard box dwellings remained. And so a tall perimeter fence
was constructed and the park was closed to one and all from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m.
each day, mirroring nighttime access restrictions the city had implemented in
nearby Nishi-Okubo and Koizumiyagumo-kinen Parks. Forced to wander
through the night, some homeless returned to repose in Okubo Park during
the day.
Other denizens, according to a park resident who asked to remain nameless,were not homeless at all, but unemployed day-laborers, most of whom hadcheap, dormitory-style lodging in flophouses but precious little money tospend on cafes or movie houses. People-watching in the park was about the
only daytime pastime they could afford.

Alas, on Oct. 8, 2005 the city stopped opening the gates, hanging a sign
informing that the park was "Under Construction." But through the fall,
winter and following spring, it did not appear that any construction had
actually taken place. One sunny day in the late summer of 2006, a group of
teenagers decided they'd waited long enough, and hopped the fence into noman's land. They played ball there through most of the afternoon, until
authorities arrived to chase them away. Shortly thereafter, construction began
in earnest -- the city removed both the basketball hoops and backboards, andtwisted hundreds of meters of barbed wire along the top of the perimeter
fence. It was war.
But over what? After all, this was no Jardin du Luxembourg. It is small andnoteworthy, due its proximity to Kabukicho sex clubs, for being downrightsleazy at times. Japanese porn star Sally Yoshino claims to have lost hervirginity there. But despite its shortcomings, it is about the only public spacethat Okubo residents have -- and doesn't "public space" mean that it belongs
to the people, not the functionaries?
In late autumn 2006, in the twilight before suppertime, I observed a lone
teenager in the lobby of a Shokuan Dori apartment building, bouncing hisbasketball against the walls. At least he was trying to stay active -- probably
many if not most of his former park playmates had long since retreated totheir bedrooms, video games and the "hikikomori" social withdrawal
syndrome that local governments are constantly pledging to fight.
"Unfortunately, a small number of people have created problems and we haveto think about that," explained Nihei. "The Tokyo Metropolitan Government
has a homeless support policy, but those in Okubo Park were very aggressive.
In Toyama and Chuo Park, for example, they are more acquiescent. Of course
it's sad though, and I strongly hope we can let young people use the parkagain, but at this point we have no target date for reopening."
That seemed to be the end of the story, until crews suddenly appeared in
Okubo Park in December and hung a new sign, informing that"improvements" were being undertaken, and the park would reopen inJanuary 2007.

There are several possible sorts of city parks. There are pretty ones, such as
landscape or botanical gardens, which invite people to appreciate nature.
Others are less ambitious, purely functional parks that might simply provide aplace to sit and read or feed the pigeons. And then there are playgrounds orsports-oriented parks, with jungle gyms, basketball hoops -- or a petanquepiste even (Okubo hosts a vibrant petanque association).
When the Okubo Park reopening day arrived, I was curious to see what sortof atmosphere the Shinjuku city government had made of this troubled public
space after 16 months of consultation, consideration and construction.
Unfortunately for the neighborhood, it is an atmosphere of abject failure. Thiscertainly isn't a pretty park: Not a single flower or blade of grass has beenplanted, the ground is still a patchwork of dirty asphalt, and four of the trees
have been cut down. Neither is the park functional as a people's space. There
had been some two dozen stone stools, but these have been removed, leaving
not a single place to sit.
There is a complete strike out on sports as well; a pair of soccer nets that had
occupied the center of the park are gone, and the basketball hoops andbackboards remain absent. There are more than 20 signs posted now telling
people what they can't do -- feeding the pigeons is prohibited, as is playing
any musical instrument or raising your voice. I could go on. Shinjuku has built
a park that doesn't want people.
I spoke once more with Nihei after the park's reopening, asking about theremoval of the park's meager sports infrastructure, the removal of trees andall seating, and asking what sort of person the Shinjuku city government
could possibly expect to use Okubo Park now. "We want everyone to use thepark!" was the response.
In the week following the reopening, only a handful of homeless had taken up
the invitation.
The Japan Times: Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2007
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