AT A GLANCE
Why go?
Set within the grounds of the Yokohama District Court along Nihon-Odori, this modest stone slab memorial commemorates 94 people who perished when the court's brick building collapsed during the Great Kanto Earthquake on September 1, 1923. Erected on the disaster's twelfth anniversary in 1935, it stands as one of Yokohama's quietest yet most poignant reminders of a catastrophe that reshaped the city.↗↗
The memorial is easy to miss—a large stone set slightly back from the street, tucked beneath a tree to the left of the court's main entrance. Its understated placement suits its character as a place of remembrance rather than spectacle, making it a meaningful stop for visitors tracing Yokohama's earthquake heritage through the Kannai district.↗↗
The Building That Fell
The Yokohama District Court that stood on this site in 1923 was a Western-style brick structure built in 1890, one of the grandest symbols of Meiji-era modernization in Japan's treaty port. A detailed account written by presiding judge Nagaoka Kumoo in 1935 describes the complex: a courtyard surrounded by four wings, with brick front and rear sections rising two stories and a three-story lookout tower at the center, wooden side wings plastered to look like concrete, three brick storehouses, and a basement holding area from which prisoners emerged directly into courtrooms. This unusual layout was famous throughout Yokohama.
