蛇崩

'Snake Collapse.' An Edo gazetteer says a giant serpent burst from a collapsing cliff during a flood. The real snake was always the river — buried in the 1970s, it still writhes beneath the streets as a storm drain.

An Edo-era gazetteer records the legend: during a great flood, a giant serpent burst from a collapsing cliff. The drier theory: 'sakuzure' (an old word for embankment collapse) shifted to 'jakuzure', and the snake kanji was chosen for the river that writhes through the terrain. Either way — the snake was always the river. The name officially died in 1932; the river was buried in the 1970s. Both survive underground: one as an intersection name, one as a storm drain.

The river was almost entirely culverted in the 1970s; only a few meters still run open where it meets the Meguro River.