Jardin+Japonés

Jardin Japonés

The Jardin Japones in San Antonio was build between July 1917 and May 1918. Prison labor was used to build it and was made in an abandoned limestone rock quarry. It is made up of walkways, stone arch bridges, an island, and a Japanese pagoda. In 1926, Kimi Eizo Jingu, a local Japanese-American artist, moved to the garden and opened a small place that sold light lunches and tea. She raised a family there, but was evicted during the anti- Japanese sentiment of World War II. After this event, the garden was named the Chinese Tea Gardens, and a Chinese family moved in to maintain the gardens until the 60s. In 1984, the garden was renamed to the original Japanese Tea Gardens by a ceremony attended by Jingu’s children and representatives of the Japanese government.

For years there was no one to keep up the garden and there was no admission and not much security, it became a place for graffiti and the homeless. The city almost cut the garden’s funding, but citizens of the city rallied to keep it open. The summer of 2006 the pagoda and other buildings were restored and the other features were touched up. There is a sitting area that sits many people. It is a Registered Texas Historic Landmark and is listed of the National Register of Historic Places.



http://www.answers.com/topic/san-antonio-japanese-tea-gardens

http://hotx.com/sunkengarden/

Jackie E