Sugamo Park
On Wednesday, June 26th I visited Sugamo Park in Toshima Ward, near JR Ikebukuro Station, Tokyo. It is also somewhat innocuously known as “Higashi-Ikebukuro Chou Koen,” or the East Ikebukuro Central Park. The park is next to the multipurpose Sunshine 60 skyscraper. Sunshine 60 was the tallest building in Japan and in Asia when it was completed in 1978. It remained the tallest until 1985 when it was surpassed by the 63 Building in Seoul, South Korea. Sunshine 60 was also the tallest building in Tokyo and Japan until the 70-storey Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in West Shinjuku was completed in 1991.
Sugamo Park is a small park immediately adjacent to the skyscraper. One interesting thing about it is that it occupies the land that was once the site of the old Sugamo Prison where Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and other convicted Class A war criminals were hanged. They were tried at a different location in Tokyo - at the former Imperial Japanese Army Headquarters building, in Ichigaya, central Tokyo - but imprisoned and hanged here. It's not a large park. It's well shaded. There is a fountain. Homeless people have set up a campsite in the back. Of particular interest is that there is a little-remembered marker and memorial to the prison in one corner. Visitors leave incense, tobacco and alcohol, and Rising Sun flags to the spirit of Tojo and the others who died here.