JAPAN: No Nero; New Tokyo

Sadly six years ago the present "Son of Heaven," athletic, scholarly Emperor Hirohito, stood on the ramparts of Tokyo's Imperial Palace and saw a third of the city burning up and shaking down. Nero would have enjoyed the sight, not so Hirohito. But last week his Majesty ascended the same eminence and had proper cause for imperial joy. The whole area of the "Great Fire" (see map) which accompanied the quake of 1924 has been substantially if not elegantly rebuilt.

It was of course necessary to report minutely to the imperial ancestors at their shrines all about New Tokyo. With this duty in mind, the Emperor entered an open touring car and, followed by 29 carfuls of dignitaries, made the rounds of nearly all places key-numbered on the map.

Big Sumida River (1) and little Kanda River (2), his Majesty can state as an eyewitness are still flowing. Buds are sprouting in the "Cherry Blossom Parks": Shiba (3), Hibiya (4), Uyeno (5), and Hama Rikyu (6), which is every year the scene of the Imperial Cherry Blossom Garden Party. Different is Asakusa Park (7), a "Coney Island," incongruously surrounding the Sacred Temple of the Goddess of Mercy.

By no means without interest to the imperial ancestors is the Yoshmara or

"Abode of Daughters of Joy," among the most sumptuous quarters in New Tokyo, and the first to be completely rebuilt. Not in the fire area was the smart residential district near the Imperial Palace and the Akasaka Palace (8) of Crown Prince Chichibu.

Famed is the "Sunrise Bridge" (9) from which all distances in Japan are measured. So sturdy was the Central Railway Station's anti-earthquake bracing that it did not shake down (10). The "Hall of the Nameless Dead" (11) commemorates 33,000 victims of the fire. Major Japanese banks: Bank of Japan, Mitsui Bank, Mitsubishi Bank cluster near each other (12), but the National City Bank of New York is aloof (14). Number 13 is the lucky site of the Imperial Hotel, "most popular in the Far East," refuge of Occidentals during the fire, completely proof against mere earthquakes, though conceivably the earth might open and swallow it.