Temple town shaped by a Buddhist university, lanes still as narrow as before the war, the Toden tram still running on the street
The closest neighborhoods in the same city.
The area around Nishi-Sugamo Station is a temple district, and Nishi-Sugamo 4-chome alone has several temples, including Zenyo-ji, Seigan-ji, and Myogyo-ji. Most of the lanes in this temple district are still the narrow prewar streets. The Toden Arakawa Line runs at street level here, stopping at Koshinzuka and Shin-Koshinzuka.
Taisho University, which brought this temple district into being, is run jointly by five Buddhist sects, and every summer it holds the Odai Bon Odori on campus. This Bon dance is planned by students as part of their coursework, and every year since 2022 it has drawn more than ten thousand visitors.
About a quarter of the people living in this neighborhood are 65 or older, higher than the roughly one-fifth for Toshima City as a whole, and about the same as Kita City. About four in ten households own their home, also more than in Toshima City.
Underground, there is also Nishi-Sugamo Station on the Toei Mita Line. Oiwa-dori, next to Shin-Koshinzuka, used to be a shopping street, but it is now gradually being rebuilt into apartment buildings.
The Shin-Koshinzuka stop straddles Hakusan-dori, about 250 meters from Nishi-Sugamo Station, and the two stations are marked as a transfer point. For everyday shopping, this neighborhood ranks 72nd out of 395 neighborhoods in Tokyo, its strongest score.
Within this area's landscape plan zone, only Sugamo 1 to 3-chome, outside the neighborhood, underwent postwar reconstruction land readjustment; the rest is still prewar narrow streets. The northwest part of the neighborhood is designated as an urban area dense with wooden housing.
Sugamo 5-chome is one of Tokyo's designated fire-risk reduction priority areas, with many narrow roads and dead ends, and a dense concentration of old wooden houses. Judging from our street photos, buildings here rank 257th out of 395 neighborhoods in Tokyo, the weakest score in this neighborhood.
Koshinzuka was originally a rest stop on the Nakasendo, between Nihombashi and Itabashi-shuku. From the Edo period through the prewar years, the old Nakasendo running north from Sugamo to Takinogawa 6-chome, outside the neighborhood, was lined with seedling shops and was known as Taneya-dori, or Seed Shop Street. Taisho University's south gate faces this street, and in 2022 a Tane Jizo statue, holding a flowerpot, was erected in front of the gate.
In the Meiji era, after Shukyo University, the predecessor of Taisho University, was established, many temples from central Tokyo relocated here, forming the temple district. In 1911, the Oji Electric Railway, predecessor of the Toden Arakawa Line, opened, and Koshinzuka stop opened along with it.
Auxiliary Road No. 81 extends from Sugamo 5-chome north to Nishigahara 3-chome, outside the neighborhood, running about 0.9 kilometers in total, with Tokyo aiming to complete it by the end of fiscal year 2030. The fire-risk reduction target for the Sugamo 5-chome area is also set for the same year.
Compared with the 395 Tokyo neighborhoods in this guide (scores 0–10)
Hospitals with inpatient beds (2020 data), public elementary and junior high schools whose catchment covers this area, high schools and universities within 1 km, stations, parks of 1 ha or more, and large shopping malls and department stores. Many Tokyo junior high students attend private schools, so junior high catchments are only a guide.
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How to read it: yellow = poor, blue = good; grey = not enough data
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