1980 Tokyo Subway and MyCity Mall shopping scenes. Slide collection of an American tourist

18 comments

1. My distant relative Uncle Bill visited Japan back in 1971 and 1980 and took a lot of photo slides of Tokyo and other places of interest. After he passed away about 15 years ago, I saved his slides from being thrown away.

2. It’s weird to imagine Tokyo rail turnstiles without IC card readers. How’d that even work? Did the human attendant sit and inspect each fare ticket? It must have been so *slow*.

3. It looks like the fares have had about a 50% increase over time. Should’ve put McDonalds in charge of the national railway.

4. This is surprising. I have seen this deep in the inaka but I figured Tokyo would have already had something automated. By the 90s you used the paper tickets. You could buy a stack of 10 a tiny bit cheaper than buying each time iirc.

5. This appears to be the approximate location of the third photo featuring the entrance to MyCity: https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZSkLayJ11Bcx6yo28

   All that remains unchanged is one of the angled beams and the ceiling. The lost and found area is still there too, but looks dramatically different now.

6. Amazing, everything looked so different

7. pre-suica days!!!

8. Old ladies still dress like that.

9. Only relevant posts in this sub, keep it coming.

10. These are beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

11. Excellent

12. Some of these photos could have been taken yesterday. The pace of social change in Japan is glacial.

13. I love all those retro fonts.

14. A E S T H E T I C

15. Great photos. Interestingly in that second photo someone’s wearing a larger sized version of a popular varsity jacket from the designer brand Celine. Wouldn’t be surprised if the creative director Hedi Slimane mined images of Japan for inspiration.

16. People looks shorter than they are now

17. How many slide did this American tourist take exactly???

    I’m glad they did, though.

18. For anyone who’s been in Japan within the last 10 or 15 years, look at that subway map on slide 5. Going anywhere before you knee kanji was a challenge.

    Also, are those light blue metal things in slides 3 and 4 ashtrays?