Factory Streets at Honjo, from the series Scenes of Last Tokyo

This print captures the busy skyline of early Honjo, then one of Tokyo’s most industrialized neighborhoods. The area’s factories made Honjo an important target for American firebombing at the end of World War II, and the neighborhood was among those most heavily damaged by the 1945 Bombing of Tokyo. This print was created by Maekawa for a portfolio called Scenes of Last Tokyo, capturing views of the city that had been lost in the bombing. This print looks back nostalgically at Honjo’s trailing smokestacks, capturing an industrial scene that no longer existed in a bomb-ravaged Tokyo.