Ant Town (No. 8 Reclaimed Land)

Ant Town (蟻の街) was a scrap-collecting community formed around January 1950 by people who had lost their homes in the war and other upheavals, beside Kototoi Bridge in Sumida Park (on the Taitō side). Its organisation was called the Ants' Society (蟻の会). On 13 May 1951, Pentecost, the "Ant Town church" was completed, with a large cross raised on its roof. Satoko Kitahara (1929–1958) came to live in the town and taught its children.

Tokyo Metropolis asked the community to move and offered about 5,000 tsubo on No. 8 Reclaimed Land as an alternative site. At first the condition was payment of ¥25 million for the land in cash, but in the end the Metropolis fully accepted the Ants' Society's demand of "¥15 million for the land, paid in instalments over five years". The Tokyo Archdiocese dates the agreement to 19 January 1958, and Wikipedia to 20 January 1958. Satoko Kitahara died shortly afterwards, on 23 January, aged 28.

The move is dated 4 June 1960 (Wikipedia). The new site was 16,000 m², ten times the size of the old Ant Town. The year 1960 also agrees with the diocesan records. Kōtō-ku's chronology, however, lists "the Ari-no-kai moved to No. 8 (Shiomi) and founded New Ant Town" under 1958. This 1958 may refer to the decision to move, but that is not certain.

In the new Ant Town, trucks and conveyor belts replaced hand carts and the heavy work of baling, and a public bath, a children's park and a nursery room were built. The church also moved here in 1960 and began anew as "Catholic Edagawa Church (Ant Town Church)". But No. 8 Reclaimed Land was far from the populous city districts and poorly suited to the work itself. In 1988 the Ants' Society, its role fulfilled, was dissolved.

The Japan Catholic Center now stands on the former site of the Ants' Society.