The Nihonbashi district was the commercial heart of Edo long before it became Tokyo's financial center. Its early development is largely credited to the Mitsui family, who based their wholesaling business here and built what became Japan's first department store: Mitsukoshi, which still operates in the same neighborhood. The Edo-era fish market that once anchored the district was the direct predecessor of the Tsukiji and Toyosu fish markets. Yamamotoyama, a tea house founded here in 1690, continues to sell tea today. The commerce attracted banks, and the banks attracted more banks. The Bank of Japan built its headquarters in Nihonbashi. The Tokyo Stock Exchange followed. Nomura Holdings, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company, Takashimaya department stores, and dozens of other corporations established their offices in the surrounding blocks. Together with Kyobashi and Kanda, Nihonbashi forms the core of Shitamachi -- the original downtown of Edo-Tokyo, before newer centers like Shinjuku and Shibuya drew the city's gravity westward.

The artist Hiroshige immortalized Nihonbashi bridge in two of his most famous ukiyo-e print series: The Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido and The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaido. In both, the bridge appears as the first image -- the starting point of an epic journey. During the Edo period, Nihonbashi was known as Edobashi, or Edo Bridge, and it served as the official starting point for all five of the Edo Five Routes: the Tokaido running along the coast to Kyoto, the Nakasendo through the mountains to the same destination, the Koshu Kaido to Kai Province, the Oshu Kaido to Mutsu Province, and the Nikko Kaido to the Tokugawa shrines at Nikko. Each road began at this single bridge. Travelers, merchants, pilgrims, and feudal lords on their mandatory processions to Edo all passed over these stones. That convergence of routes made Nihonbashi not just a bridge but a crossroads for the entire nation.

On the night of March 9-10, 1945, American B-29 bombers dropped incendiary bombs across Tokyo in what is considered the single largest air raid in history. The area surrounding Nihonbashi bridge was burned to the ground. The stone and steel bridge survived, but not without damage. Despite careful maintenance and restoration over the decades since, one section of the bridge still bears scorch marks burned into the stone by an incendiary bomb. It is one of the very few physical traces remaining from the firebombing that leveled most of the city. In 1947, when Tokyo's 35 wards were reorganized into 23, the Nihonbashi ward was merged with Kyobashi to form the modern Chuo ward. The district rebuilt itself, but the bridge carried its scars forward -- a quiet memorial in a city that often prefers to build over its painful history rather than preserve it.

Shortly before the 1964 Summer Olympics, the Japanese government built an elevated expressway directly over the Nihonbashi bridge, blocking the classic view of Mount Fuji that had been painted by Hiroshige and cherished for centuries. The decision was practical -- Tokyo needed modern roads for the Olympics -- but it became a source of enduring regret. For decades, local citizens petitioned to move the expressway underground. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi endorsed the idea in 2005. In 2017, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism announced a detailed study, with construction to begin after the 2020 Summer Olympics. The operator of the Shuto Expressway received approval in May 2020 to relocate 1.8 kilometers of the highway underground between Kandabashi and Edobashi Junctions. Construction has commenced and is expected to finish in fiscal year 2041. When it is done, the sky above Nihonbashi will be open for the first time in nearly eighty years. Whether Mount Fuji will still be visible through Tokyo's modern skyline is another question entirely.