The bridge at Nihonbashi, a symbol of old Tokyo, has had a hard time in the modern age. A bridge was first built there in 1603, the first year of the shogunate in Edo, and the present stone bridge in the Meiji Era, in 1911.

Still bearing the marks of the wartime firebombing of Tokyo by American forces in 1945, it is overshadowed by an expressway built directly overhead for the Tokyo Olympics of 1964 and by later high-rise buildings.

In April, the 100th anniversary of the bridge was lost in the aftermath of the March 11 disaster.