Rackety wooden houses with shingled roofs in Tokyo’s Anjincho (安針町) in the Nihonbashi district. This image was published in the June 17 1872 issue of the newsmagazine The Far East, published in Yokohama by the famous Scottish publisher J. R. Black between 1870 and 1878.

Tokyo 1872

 So we know this photo is at least as old as that date. The area looks dilapidated and squalid, quite different from the views of Japan on the souvenir photos that were soon sold all over the world. These portrayed Japan as a land of infinite beauty and charm.