Seeing the rows of houses and apartments clustered around JR Tabata Station, it is hard to believe the area was, until the beginning of the last century, a vast agricultural landscape marking the northeastern end of downtown Tokyo.
It is even harder to believe that the Kita Ward area was an artistic hot spot during the Meiji and Taisho eras (1868-1926), hosting some of the country's most celebrated cultural figures.
While the area's strong cultural bent is long gone, there stands near the station a small museum that brings visitors back to the area's golden age, which lasted almost four decades.