yokohamabund

The hotel no longer exists, one of many casualties of the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923. A nearly identical photo by Kusakabe is in the Nagasaki University database, though differences in trees and the building on the right side of the road running up the frame show it is froma different time. That photo's comment says that the building in the center of this photo is the Grand Hotel's original building (kyuu-kan, 旧館), construction started in Meiji 3 (1870). Other photos say it was completed in Meiji 6 (1873). A photo of the hotel from 1908 in UW collection is tough to place in this one, because it is taken from the opposite side of the buildings, showing the annex completed in summer of 1890. Because the roofline of the building to the left of the original hotel does not resemble the annex, NPL's photo must be between 1873 and 1890. Another photo by Kusakabe Kinbei is held by Nagasaki University, showing the quite different facade of the annex (shinkan). Yet another in their large collection of Kusakabe prints shows the annex alongside the original hotel from the water. A photo from the end of the bund (quay) by an unidentified photographer also shows both buildings of the hotel. An 1895 menu. According to this site, the hotel was located roughly where the Yokohama Doll Museum is now. The Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Cultural History has a photo of the hotel after the earthquake. Their map supports the location at the present Doll Museum. Between the wooded foreground and the masonry buildings, Yokohama Canal (横浜堀川) runs from left to right. A Kusakabe photo shows the canal and the gated bridge that contained foreigners on the bund. Another photo by Kusakabe from further up the canal is available from MeijiTaisho.net with a high-resolution download.

Taken from about here, though you need to go up a couple of floors in "Hotel Feel" to get the same shot. It's interesting to wonder if Kimbei took this from a tall hotel's roof? FWIW, the graveyard for foriegners is just back to our left.

This photograph is featured in the Indicommons.org post Traveling Photography.

What a difference time makes in all things ideological and concrete. It would have been a great voyage from san francisco to yokohama.