Like many Yamanote Loop stations, Gotanda’s name speaks of the area’s past. Gotanda literally means 5,000 sq. meters of rice paddies, “tan” formerly being a measure for land area equivalent to 1,000 sq. meters.

But today the Gotanda area is a far cry from its bucolic origins, and the quaint moniker no longer reflects the station’s reality.

Dominated by financial offices, bars, restaurants and some seedier shops catering to the more carnal of human cravings, the area has been urbanized into a haven for the hordes of salaried workers whose offices are here.

“Gotanda is just your average station,” said stationmaster Masayoshi Ishikawa.

While the nearby Meguro River and low elevation used to make the site ideal for agriculture, now it is simply a pain for station officials and locals when heavy rains flood the area and back up drainage systems, he said.

“The station really has no distinguishing characteristics. It is has become a business district full of ‘salarymen’ and bars and restaurants,” he added.

Unlike nearby Yamanote stations such as Osaki, Shinagawa and Ebisu, Gotanda has not made any major effort to transform itself into a more tempting destination.

Shopkeepers around the station echo Ishikawa’s sentiments.

After being leveled by bombing during World War II, locals returned and rebuilt the area into a cozy suburb. But with the advent of the bubble economy of the late 1980s, renters and operators of small shops were forced out as landlords opted to cash in on ballooning land prices.

The mom-and-pop retail shop atmosphere was eroded by gleaming skyscrapers and an influx of finance companies, say local shopkeepers.

A few have stubbornly stayed on and wax nostalgically about the prebubble days. They decry the arrival of pachinko parlors that are squeezed between buildings and the sex-related businesses that have sprung up behind the facade of companies on the station’s east side.

Now the area is a muddle of small shops, big banks, eateries and after-hours entertainment shops. It is hard to miss the loud signs of moneylending agencies that jut out over the streets.

Today life around the station moves with the coming and going of the legions of salariats that ebb in each morning and flow out at night.

More than 70 years since Gotanda’s establishment in 1928, the station caters to some 265,000 people daily, making it the 13th busiest station on the Yamanote Loop and the 20th most used station operated by East Japan Railway Co.