Yokohama Stadium — A Time When Japanese People Were Not Allowed In

To the southwest of Marine Tower, within Yokohama Park, you can see the white roof of Yokohama Stadium. Today, that entire area is a beloved civic ballpark, its green field open to all — but there was a time when Japanese people could not set foot there at all. In the 1860s, shortly after the port was opened, a foreign settlement was established in Yokohama. Within it, a space was created known as the Kaga Garden — a name that, written in Japanese characters, places "them" and "us" side by side. But the reality told a different story. The section on the settlement side was reserved exclusively for foreigners; Japanese people had no right to enter freely. Cricket was played on its grounds, and Western-style gardens were carefully tended — a scene that reflected, without disguise, the inequality lurking beneath the splendor that the opening of the port had brought. Time moved on. The park was devastated by the Great Kanto Earthquake, yet it rose again from the rubble. After the Second World War, however, it was requisitioned by the Allied Forces, and once more it slipped from the hands of the people. It was not until 1978, when Yokohama Stadium was completed, that the people of Yokohama truly reclaimed this place as their own. Built through public fundraising and investment from local businesses, the stadium was born as Japan's first multipurpose stadium. From a foreigners-only club where Japanese were forbidden to enter, to seized military ground, to a civic ballpark where thirty thousand voices rise in unison — over the course of more than a century and a half, that same patch of earth has changed hands again and again, and been reborn again and again. If the floodlights happen to be glowing tonight for an evening game, I invite you to look upon them as a symbol — a light that speaks of Yokohama's capacity to rise from loss, time after time. That white roof holds within it a quiet memory of all the light and shadow that the opening of this port once cast upon the world. Location: Yokohama Park, Naka Ward, Yokohama Predecessor: Kaga Garden (recreational facility within the foreign settlement) Settlement established: 1860s Great Kanto Earthquake damage: 1923 Postwar requisition: Occupied by Allied Forces Yokohama Stadium completed: 1978 Capacity: Approx. 34,000 Note: Japan's first multipurpose stadium; built through civic and local business investment