Mitsukoshi Dept. Store

(Above:) Mitsukoshi Gofukuten. Looking forward to welcoming you all. The original modern-era Mitsukoshi Nihonbashi branch store, ca. 1908. This postcard was published during the visit of the US Great White Fleet to Japan during its 14-month circumnavigation of the world.

It was not Tokyo's first dry goods store. (Daimaru was.) It was not even Tokyo's first Western-style department store. (Shirokiya was, in 1886.) However, Mitsukoshi Gofukuten did have excellent store locations (Nihonbashi and, later, Ginza and Shinjuku), and a long, rich retailing history dating back to 1673. For the better part of 75 years, the flagship Mitsukoshi store at Nihonbashi dominated Tokyo's retail trade, just as its predecessor, Echigoya, had dominated -- and revolutionized -- the sale of dry goods during the Edo era.

The original three-story Mitsukoshi (seen in the image above), opened in 1903, would soon be replaced by a much larger building in 1911. At its opening, this new centrally-heated collosus was said to be the largest building -- by total volume -- east of the Suez. It also boasted such new technologies as escalators and elevators.

An even larger emporium rose from the ashes of the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake. This building, which still stands today at Nihonbashi, was topped off with an innovation now ubiquitous within most Japanese department stores: the rooftop garden. Mitsukoshi's Sky Garden included gardens, a fountain and ponds, and provided visitors with a birds-eye view of the city.