The Meiji Jingu Gaien Ginkgo Avenue

Every one of these 146 ginkgo trees was already a young adult when it was planted. In 1908, gardeners collected seeds from ginkgos at Shinjuku Gyoen and grew 1,600 seedlings in a nursery; only the straightest, best-shaped survivors, already six meters tall, were selected fifteen years later to line this avenue when Meiji Jingu Gaien opened in 1923 as a memorial to Emperor Meiji. The landscape architect who laid it out planted them nine meters apart along a 300-meter stretch running straight toward the Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery, engineering the perspective so the trees appear to funnel toward the building's dome from any angle on the street. A century on, the tallest reaches 28 meters, and every November the avenue turns the same uniform gold that has made it one of the most photographed streets in Japan, filled with tour groups and engagement shoots in equal number. A 2023 redevelopment plan for the neighboring stadium district reignited public debate over whether construction work threatens the ginkgos' roots, a reminder that even Tokyo's most photographed trees remain, legally, just trees.