is a neighborhood in Katsushika, Tokyo, Japan. The name derives from a tiny stone monument called , located at 8-37 Tateishi. With its retro-chic shopping streets and small, back-street workshops and factories, the area retains an atmosphere associated with Tokyo's earthy ''

Shitamachi and are traditional names for two areas of Tokyo, Japan. Yamanote refers to the affluent, upper-class areas of Tokyo west of the Imperial Palace.Iwanami Japanese dictionary, 6th Edition (2008), DVD version While citizens once considered it as ...

'' ("downtown") neighborhoods. Katsushika Ward Office, is located at 5-13-1 Tateishi.

Geography

Tateishi is situated on the west bank of the Nakagawa, a river, about 3 km south of the Kameari area known to many through the

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

'' Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kōen-mae Hashutsujo''. The Higashi-Tateishi ("east Tateishi") neighborhood lies to the south of Tateishi. , an old-fashioned shopping street near the railway station, was started soon after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

ended. Until around 1980, Tateishi was home to numerous small, family-owned factories, though many of these have since closed and small apartment houses now occupy many of their former sites. The neighborhood's chief industries include dyeing works and doll manufacturing.

Transportation

Tateishi is served by the Keisei Electric Railway through its

Keisei Tateishi Station is a railway station on the Keisei Oshiage Line in Katsushika, Tokyo, Japan, operated by the private railway operator Keisei Electric Railway. Lines Keisei Tateishi Station is served by the 5.7 km Keisei Oshiage Line, and is located 4.6&nb ...

. Most trains stopping at Tateishi also serve

Asakusa is a district in Taitō, Tokyo, Japan. It is known as the location of the Sensō-ji, a Buddhist temple dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon. There are several other temples in Asakusa, as well as various festivals, such as the . History The ...

, about 12 minutes away.

Narita International Airport Narita International Airport ( ja, 成田国際空港, Narita Kokusai Kūkō) , also known as Tokyo-Narita, formerly and originally known as , is one of two international airports serving the Greater Tokyo Area, the other one being Haneda Airport ...

is also readily accessible from Tateishi by changing to a limited express train at Aoto, the next station down the line in the Narita direction.

Major businesses

Toy, merchandising, and entertaining giant Tomy is headquartered in Tateishi.

Tateishi-sama

Tateishi ("standing stone") derives its name from a

standing stone A menhir (from Brittonic languages: ''maen'' or ''men'', "stone" and ''hir'' or ''hîr'', "long"), standing stone, orthostat, or lith is a large human-made upright rock (geology), stone, typically dating from the European middle Bronze Age. T ...

addressed by locals as Tateishi-sama, ''sama'' being a suffix indicating respect. The stone has been at its present location for at least 600 years and is thought to have been carried and erected here given that the area is on alluvial soil. Locals began to worship the stone as an embodiment of the deity

Inari Inari may refer to: Shinto * Inari Ōkami, a Shinto spirit ** Mount Inari in Japan, site of Fushimi Inari-taisha, the main Shinto shrine to Inari ** Inari Shrine, shrines to the Shinto god Inari * Inari-zushi, a type of sushi Places * Inari, ...

during the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

(ca. 1600–1868), hence the ''sama'' in the name. The stone is reputed to have once had a height of 8-24 inches (approximately 20 to 60 cm), but today it stands only 1 inch above ground level due to the effects of

flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...

subsidence Subsidence is a general term for downward vertical movement of the Earth's surface, which can be caused by both natural processes and human activities. Subsidence involves little or no horizontal movement, which distinguishes it from slope move ...

, and breakage by locals who wanted to use a piece of the stone as a talisman against disease or getting shot in battle.

Education

Katsushika Ward Board of Education operates public elementary and junior high schools. Tateishi 1-

chome The Japanese addressing system is used to identify a specific location in Japan. When written in Japanese characters, addresses start with the largest geographical entity and proceed to the most specific one. When written in Latin characters, ad ...

is zoned to Honden Elementary School (本田小学校). 2-4-chome and part of 5-chome are zoned to Umeda Elementary School (梅田小学校). 6-7-chome and the rest of 5-chome are zoned to Seiwa Elementary School (清和小学校). 8-chome is zoned to Katsushika Elementary School (葛飾小学校). Tateishi 3-4 and 6-8-chome, as well as part of 5-chome, are zoned to Tateishi Junior High School (立石中学校). 2-chome and the rest of 5-chome are zoned to Daido Junior High School ( 大道中学校). 1-chome is zoned to Honden Junior High School ( 本田中学校).

References

{{Authority control Neighborhoods of Tokyo Katsushika