These deceptively simple structures are no less than the sacred repository of the national identity Shinto sanctuaries dedicated nearly 2,000 years ago to Japan's founding deities.
Shinto shrines are almost 2000 years old.
Nowadays, popular cinemas have found an appropriate home on the boulevards, for it was at the Hetel Scribe, near the Opera, that the Lumiare brothers staged the first public moving picture show in 1895.