120207-0084-PP - Jinpuro Brothel

A crowd of people in front of the Kanagawa branch of the famous house of prostitution known as Jinpuro (新風楼 高島町, Nectarine) or No. 9, in Kanagawa (current Kanagawa-ku in Yokohama), Kanagawa Prefecture.

Jinpuro was opened in Yokohama’s Takashima-cho in 1872 (Meiji 5). In 1885 (Meiji 18) it relocated to the pleasure quarters in Magane-cho and Eiraku-cho (真金町・永楽町), while a branch for foreigners was opened in Nanaken-machi, Kanagawa (神奈川七軒町).

The brothel ceased business after its destruction in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 (Taisho 12).

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”.

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