By KENJI G. TAGUMA
Nichi Bei Times

Last year saw an unprecedented sale of major properties that sent San Francisco's Japantown fraught with anxiety, as the community and the city — along with sellers and developers alike — worked feverishly to address concerns that were looming like a dark cloud over the ethnic enclave.

While the fear of the unknown had subsided a bit after Kintetsu Enterprises Co. of America unloaded its remaining four Japantown properties, the community has anxiously awaited the unveiling of future plans for the Japan Center, much of which was purchased by Beverly Hills-based 3D Investments — which purchased the Miyako Hotel, Miyako Inn, and the Miyako and Kintetsu shopping malls which anchor the Japan Center.

On Dec. 1, the community got its first glimpse of various visions for two of three main buildings in the Japan Center, as well as the Peace Plaza.

Consultants for 3D Investments unveiled their preliminary drawings at the third community meeting held as part of the city's Better Neighborhood Planning process for Japantown, held at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California (JCCCNC).

The highly-anticipated design concepts were not the only development proposals revealed, as the nearby 1481 Post Street high-rise proposal was also unveiled. However, the Japan Center design by far has a greater impact on the Japantown community.

The two presentations by the developers were part of a four-hour meeting that engaged the community to give input.

"We are here to create a vision and a plan for the future of Japantown," said Ken Rich of the city's Planning Department.

"We are here to work with the community to get a sense of what should happen on those parcels, what should be built there, how tall they should be," Rich added. "The community recommendations are going to go into the plan, which then goes forward through the city's approval process."

PRELIMINARY DESIGNS — A version of the Roji scheme (above), with rooftop open green spaces and a mid-rise tower at the Geary and Webster streets.

RADICAL CHANGE — A drawing of the Hiroba scheme (above), which would relocate the Peace Plaza Pagoda from the Geary Boulevard side to along Post Street near Buchanan Mall, and "redistribute" the Peace Plaza to three interlocking areas surrounded by new buildings.
CLICK ON THE IMAGES ABOVE to view at full size.

LOS ANGELES (Kyodo) — The New Otani Hotel & Garden in the Little Tokyo district of Los Angeles will close its business Friday, ending its 30-year history of serving the city's Japanese community, after being bought out by an American company.

The hotel will continue as the Kyoto Grand Hotel and Gardens, but some local residents already miss the name New Otani, which has been a place for Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans in the city to socialize.

"I really appreciate the New Otani's contribution to the development of Little Tokyo," said Tom Kamei, 84, one of the designers of the New Otani.

"I hope the new hotel will also be integrated into the local Japanese community," he said.

"Rabbit Ramblings"
By CHIZU OMORI
Nichi Bei Times Columnist

Eric Muller, the George R. Ward Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has produced another significant book on the subject of the Internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Now, you might say, not another book. Haven't we exhausted this area in history and haven't all the basics been covered? Well, to me, there are still very important matters that remain relatively unstudied, and Muller is one of the few scholars who has continued to dig in the archives and papers to find valuable information — stuff that has relevance for the Japanese American community and for American life today.

"Letters to the Editor"

"They could take with them only what they could carry." Then, how was my mom able to take koto lessons in the camps? I started to question how was one able to bring such a large instrument like the koto (about six feet long and a foot and a half wide) in the camps? My grandparents and their daughters were interned in two camps, Topaz and Tule Lake. My mom was able to take koto lessons in both camps. I read about how Japanese Americans packing their belongings to be interned could take with them only what they could carry. Since the koto is hollow, maybe they stuffed their clothes in it, and carried it in. No, that sounded ridiculous, so I started to conduct my own research.

"The Great Unknown & the Unknown Great"

By GREG ROBINSON
Nichi Bei Times Contributor

The contributions of John McGilvrey Maki (1909-2006), a pioneering Nisei writer and specialist on Japan who became a distinguished scholar and educator, deserve special scrutiny. If many Nisei during his long lifetime occupied marginal positions in both Japanese and American society, Maki's case was extreme, since as an adoptee in a white family he fit oddly within Japanese American communities as well. His career path was marked by a succession of paradoxes, amid recurring irony.

HOUSTON (Kyodo) — Free agent Japanese infielder Kazuo Matsui has signed a three-year, $16.5 million contract with the Houston Astros, the National League club said Dec. 2.

By BEN HAMAMOTO
Nichi Bei Times

"Protagonist," the new documentary by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Jessica Yu, is a bit hard to synopsize. It began as an attempt, on the Carr Foundation's provocation, to craft a documentary about the ancient Athenian playwright Euripides. What resulted is a story of four men who seem to have nothing in common: a gay evangelist preacher, a member of a cult-like martial arts studio in Connecticut, a serial bank robber, and a former international terrorist.