Image from the Hokkoku Shinbun Kohrinbo Rennaissance Project.

The Hokkoku Shinbun (北國新聞), one of Ishikawa’s local newspapers, is sponsoring the Kohrinbo Rennaissance Project (香林坊ルネッサンスプロジェクト), an attempt to revisit, archive, and preserve the history of at the shopping district of Kohrinbo from “good old days” of the Showa 30s (1955-65). One part of this project, and today’s fun link, is the Retro Photograph Hall–residents send their photos of Kohrinbo in the Showa period (mostly 30s and 40s) to the newspaper. They are collected online here.

The Showa 30s saw a nationwide economic boom–the postwar “Economic Miracle”–and this decade is looked upon fondly by many a retro aficionado. Recently in Kanazawa, many comparisons have been drawn to this period because of the development happening as part of the preparations to open the first shinkansen line to service the Hokuriku region, which will connect Tokyo to Kanazawa in 2014.

-Leah