The Evolution of Hiyoshi Station and the Pedestrian Bridge

I attended Hiyoshi Campus in 1978. At that time, Hiyoshi Station was already a station with two island platforms and four tracks where express trains stopped, and the latest automatic ticket gates had been installed. However, the Yokohama Municipal Subway and the Tokyu Meguro Line did not run there yet, and Hiyoshi Tokyu Avenue (originally Hiyoshi Tokyu Department Store) did not exist. The station building was not large enough to be called a station building; the Suruga Bank (now "Suruga Bank") building next to the station was more impressive.

There was something in front of Hiyoshi Station back then that is gone now. It is the pedestrian bridge in front of the station shown in the photo. At that time, the platforms at Hiyoshi Station were at almost the same height as Tsunashima-kaido Avenue, and there were two ticket gates. One was located by going down the stairs from around the center of the platform, passing through an underground passage, and going up the stairs on the Tsunashima-kaido side (East Exit). Crossing the crosswalk right in front of you led to Hiyoshi Campus. The other was at the top of the stairs at the end of the platform toward Yokohama, from which you could go both right (West Exit) and left (East Exit). Around the ticket gates, there were commuter pass sales offices and small shops. If you exited this gate and went left, then up a few more steps, it led to this pedestrian bridge, which connected directly to the campus. There were also stairs leading down to the left before the few steps up, which came out beside Tsunashima-kaido. There, you could join passengers who had come through the underground passage and cross Tsunashima-kaido at the crosswalk to the campus side. However, since crossing the pedestrian bridge was faster than waiting for the light, I imagine many Keio students who got off at Hiyoshi Station to attend classes at Hiyoshi Campus used this bridge. On the other hand, I remember that when I was with friends on the way home from campus, we would chat and walk leisurely down the gentle slope of the ginkgo tree-lined path, wait for the light instead of crossing the bridge, and enter the station through the ticket gate leading to the underground passage.

This pedestrian bridge remained for a while after Hiyoshi Station was renovated into its current form, but it was removed in August 2002. Being a rather impatient person, I deeply regret that this bridge, which saved me from waiting for the traffic light, is gone.