On 27 April 1949, a long line formed in the rain at a Tokyo municipal-housing application site. The official Showakan photographic archive records 10,000 applicants for only 32 homes and notes that some waited all day. The inherited '1950s' date has been corrected to 1949 on the strength of this primary archive record.
Postwar Tokyo faced an acute housing shortage, and a public flat offered a rare chance to rebuild a household. A lottery might decide the final result, but applicants first had to reach the counter. The queue made the scale of scarcity visible.
Wanting a home was not a wish for luxury but for a secure place to sleep. Standing in the same rain, people waited for many different families' futures.