It’s time to say goodbye to one of Tokyo’s most famous landmark meeting spots

Spring is supposed to be a time for new beginnings, but as we approach the cusp of the season, it’s actually time to say goodbye to one of Tokyo’s most famous landmarks. For more than 40 years Shinjuku Alta has been a symbol of big city fun, but the building is down to its last few days.

Shinjuku Alta opened in 1979, just across the street from Shinjuku Station. Being right in the middle of one of Tokyo’s most bustling entertainment districts, the multi-level shopping center had a steady stream of young ladies coming in to check out the fresh and fashionable offerings from its floors of trendy boutiques. Alta added another aspect to its fame in 1982 when the seventh-floor television recording/broadcast facility Studio Alta became the home of the immensely popular comedy variety show Waratte Iitomo, which aired every weekday between 1982 and 2014 and was a pop cultural phenomenon.

Shinjuku Alta is most famous, though, not for what’s inside the building, but for the space right in front of its ground-floor entrance, which is one of the most well-known meeting spots in all of Japan. Groups of friends or couples headed out for fun in Shinjuku’s countless shops, restaurants, bars, movie theaters, and other entertainment venues usually meet up near the station first, and meeting “Alta mae,” or “in front of Alta” has become as quintessential an experience in Shinjuku as meeting in front of the statue of Hachiko the dog is in Shibuya.

But soon anyone meeting up in Shinjuku is going to have to find a new place to rendezvous. As announced last year, Shinjuku Alta is permanently closing on Friday.

No official reason has been given, but it’s hard not to notice that while Alta no doubt felt like a big, modern shopping center when it originally opened, its interior is cramped and old-fashioned by today’s standards. The building’s location, which had made it convenient and cosmopolitan-feeling, has likely compounded the problem. Alta sits on a prized plot of real estate that could be pulling in much higher profits with a taller building designed with a more modern and spacious interior to attract higher-profile tenants than the collection of smaller and independent shops it currently has.

It wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that Shinjuku Alta is closing because time has passed it by. As Shinjuku continues to grow, what was once impressively, or at least sufficiently, big enough to be a fashion center is now considered quaint. Given Alta’s location, there’s absolutely no doubt that something will be built to replace it, and hopefully whatever comes next will tip its hat to Alta’s legacy by having some sort of public space on the ground floor.

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