Time Machine: Akasaka Manos offered up a little something for everybody

TOKYO — One of the more infamous places in Tokyo during the 1960’s was the Akasaka Manos which served up piroshiki and borscht on the ground floor to diplomatic, business and other respectable clientele, and entertained customers of a different stripe on another lower floor with a detachment of heavily painted ladies. The latter was accessed by a stairway that overlooked a huge black and white blow up of a photo of the proprietor’s son, arms outstretched, as if in welcome, and featured two rows of booths facing a big color video juke box that played hits from Europe like “Quando, Quando.”

Among the group downstairs were female professionals from Europe and Russia and a couple of hardcore, gum-chewing types who had been brought in from Chicago. Akasaka Manos had a secret room — a three tatami mat room behind the cash register — used sometimes for on-the-spot extra curricular activity if the price was right. There was also a trap door leading down into a cellar that was used for hiding in the event of a surprise visit by the police. The place was so geared to the foreign customer that Japanese men who patronized the place were expected to speak English, even with the Japanese hookers.