Ueno-hirokoji

Departure data for this station is not available on this site.

Trains and departures on Tokyo Metro Ginza Line are not shown or counted here: the timetable data is withheld pending licensing.

Ueno-hirokōji Station opened on 1 January 1930 as a Tokyo Underground Railway stop on what is now the Tokyo Metro Ginza Line. The station was not in the original plan — only about 500 m south of Ueno — but was added after the department store Matsuzakaya learned that its rival Mitsukoshi was meeting the full cost of a Mitsukoshi-mae Station in front of its Nihonbashi main store, and petitioned Tokyo Underground Railway to build one here. Tokyo Underground Railway transferred the line to the Teito Rapid Transit Authority on 1 September 1941. A roughly 2.13 billion yen renovation tied to the new Toei Ōedo Line connection began in February 1996 and finished in June 2001; joint operations with Ueno-okachimachi and Naka-okachimachi began on 12 December 2000. Tokyo Metro succeeded the TRTA on 1 April 2004.

Because Ueno-hirokōji was added only after construction of the line had begun, Matsuzakaya negotiated from a weak position and could not secure the lavish treatment Mitsukoshi obtained at Mitsukoshi-mae, which was built to an exceptionally luxurious specification including Japan's first station escalator. Matsuzakaya could not have the station named simply "Matsuzakaya-mae", and settled for a contract modelled on Mitsukoshi-mae's under which no other department store may advertise inside the station and the station may not be passed by any express service introduced in future.