日: 2025年12月16日

All the Shops had left, the Underground Mall was Closed

I went to the town of Niigata today. Getting off a local train at JR Niigata station, and then I got on a bus to go to Furumachi, where used to be the center of commercial area of Niigata. What I found in Furumachi was that the underground shopping street had already closed. In 2018 to 2019, I was living closed to there and visited and walked there every day. It seemed to me that closure was a matter of time because few people were going there and obviously shops couldn’t make much money.

All the stores and shops were closed, but the street is still being used as an underground passage

The place is lower than the groundwater table. There must be a lot of water leakage.

Niigata is an area where motorization is developed thoroughly. Almost of all people move by vehicles. They don’t want to go to the city center, rather like to drive to suburban shopping malls.