Nakamise-dori links Kaminarimon with Sensoji’s inner gate in a 250-metre line of shops. Its present vermilion streetscape is modern: the earlier wooden shops were replaced, rebuilt after earthquake and war, and continually adapted by local merchants.
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The shopfronts form a bright corridor between Kaminarimon and Hozomon, but this street’s present appearance is the result of repeated rebuilding. Nakamise began in the Edo period, when residents who served visitors to Sensoji were granted the right to open shops along the temple approach.
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- Temple residents were granted shop rights between 1688 and 1735.
- The brick Nakamise shops were completed in December 1885.
- Electric utility poles along the street were buried underground in 1994.
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