The Meiji Emperor made 14 trips to the stadium to view horse racing. The grandstands was one of the few structures to survive the Great Kantō earthquake of 1923. It was later rebuilt by American J. H. Morgan and still stands today. The new stands could hold up to 20,000 spectators, and Emperor Hirohito was known to frequent the events held in Negishi. Horse racing at Negishi was ended in 1942 when the Imperial Japanese Navy took over the site and the racing grounds at Negishi were used for the operation of a printing press and, in the lower horse stables, the housing of Australian prisoners of war. In 1945, when General MacArthur discovered the printing presses during the occupation of Japan, the U.S. Army used the presses to print over 450,000 surrender documents in English, Japanese, and Korean to be distributed across the country.