"Erasing Hope."
The Keihin Hotel was a local landmark outside Shinagawa station for nearly 130 years. In 2008 Lehman Japan, the property owners, decided to sell the building to make up its market losses. A number of small shops occupied the first floor; all the renters were displaced by the sale. Eventually the police were called in to evict them while cameras from the major networks recorded the event.

Some time later, some one had spray painted the word "hope" (kibo 希望) on the boarded door. When I passed by later, a management rep was trying to blot out the word, and eradicate the feelings of the "collaterally damaged" renters.

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