130601-0011 - Jinpuro Brothel

The famous house of prostitution known as Jinpuro (Nectarine) or No. 9, in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture. Prostitutes are standing in the windows and a jinrikisha is parked in front. This is the location in Takashima-cho 2-chome (高島町2丁目) where it was located from 1871 (Meiji 4) to 1885 (Meiji 15).

Rudyard Kipling, who visited Japan in 1889 (Meiji 22), mentioned Jinpuro in his 1894 (Meiji 27) poem “McAndrew’s Hymn”: “Blot out the wastrel hours of mine in sin when I abode. Jane Harrigan’s an’ Number Nine, the Reddick an’ Grant Road”.