Hiyoshi in the 1960s

Publish: February 24, 2021

Image: The former Third Building and the purchasing department, etc., which used "kamaboko" (quonset hut) barracks in the lowlands. From the back, Tanimoto Shoe Store and Playguide. (Photographed in the 1960s)

The former Third Building seen from the front. Completed in September 1953, designed by Yoshiro Taniguchi. It contained large and small classrooms. In 1962, the small classrooms were opened to student organizations and began to be used as club rooms. It was demolished in 1988. (Photographed around 1975)

The last wooden school buildings on the Hiyoshi Campus (Classroom 80 on the left, Classrooms 81, 82, and 83 on the right). These were Classrooms 91 and 92, built on the north side of the Fourth Building in 1949, and relocated in 1961. They were demolished in March 1993 for the construction of the current Third Building. (Photographed around 1980)

When I think of the Hiyoshi Campus, there is a landscape that always comes back to me. It is the avenue of ginkgo trees stretching straight from the front of the station to the Memorial Hall, and the two "kamaboko" school buildings on the left—the low-slung Hiyoshi Administration Office and the Office of Student Services. Today, the library stands on that site. The area where the Niko Cafeteria and Green House used to be has been replaced by a grand building called "Raiosha." During my student days, the Fourth Building was the largest, housing large and small classrooms, as well as the Academic Affairs Office and faculty offices. This area was the range of our student activities; occasionally, during breaks between classes, we would walk down the steep slope of Mamushi-dani and spend time watching tennis practice. Unlike the usual impression one might have of athletic clubs, the players finishing their practice were polite and well-mannered, which surprised me and made me feel the atmosphere of the school. However, this quiet atmosphere was disturbed by a series of political incidents from 1960 onwards.

The movement to block the revision of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty. From the University of Tokyo struggles to the occupation of the Yasuda Auditorium. Then in 1969, the demonstrations to block Prime Minister Eisaku Sato's departure for the Okinawa reversion negotiations. In 1970, there was also a movement to force the scrap of the "automatic extension" of the Security Treaty. Political issues followed one after another in just ten years. This turmoil, combined with the radical actions of the Zenkyoto (All-Campus Joint Struggle League) and the New Left, spread to universities across the country. The demonstrations during Prime Minister Eisaku Sato's visit to the U.S. in November 1969 were particularly intense, and in Hiyoshi, fierce zigzag demonstrations were repeated under the ginkgo trees. It was at this time that I saw Michiyoshi Oshima of the Faculty of Economics at the front of the demonstration. He likely felt he wanted to protect the students from the violence between sects. At the time, it required considerable courage. However, the movement of activists peaked around this time, and regarding the "automatic extension" issue of the 1970 Security Treaty, the extension was decided quite easily despite large-scale demonstrations. Radical student movements had already lost the support of society.

Last December, I visited Hiyoshi for the first time in a long while. It was a cloudy day, but the ginkgo leaves shone bright yellow in the sunlight that occasionally peeked through. The sight of women picking up ginkgo nuts was the same as in the old days, and I returned home having enjoyed the quiet atmosphere of Hiyoshi for the first time in a long while.

(Junichi Kuroiwa, Professor Emeritus, Keio University)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time this magazine was published.