The local installment of Mitsuwa, the Japanese mini-mall, is located in Edgewater, New Jersey. Below is the main feature: a supermarket that sells Japanese ingredients, including excellent fish. It has a full food court that includes lots of basic Japanese food, but also some stands with hamburgers and Italian beef.
The supermarket is at the center of a small strip-mall that also includes a Japanese bookstore and stationer. The books there are beautifully printed, and their uniform dimensions make for a pleasing display.
The magazine section has Japanese editions of American publications, as well as Japanese periodicals. Included is “Wink Up,” a teen magazine.
From behind Mitsuwa, we get a great view of Morningside Heights, the neighborhood that includes Columbia University’s main campus and Riverside Church (right), which was built by John D. Rockefeller from 1926 to 1930. Its congregation remains prominent today, and is particularly famous for its leftist activism. The tower of the church contains the only carillon in the world that bests that of my alma mater, the University of Chicago. Both instruments are named for Laura Spelman Rockefeller, the wife of John D.
The colonnaded rotunda on the left-hand side of the photo is the tomb of Ulysses S. “Bury me next to my wife, but nothing too fancy” Grant. It was finished in 1897, fell into disrepair in the 1970s along with much of the rest of public New York, and was restored impressively in the late 1990s.
Getting back on the bus, I keep heading north.