The Mysterious Man Who Built (and Then Lost) Little Tokyo

In stark distinction to his bereft clients, he appears calmly resigned to the state of affairs. He nonetheless has a large — and rising — presence in Business Metropolis. “I begin to say, possibly, do I have to sustain with it?” he mentioned. “Is it value it to run the enterprise? Or possibly, begin to do a brand new enterprise once more, although I’m older now.”

Tadao Yoshida was born in Niigata, Japan, in 1945 and raised in Yokohama, outdoors Tokyo. Discouraged by the job state of affairs in Japan, he puzzled: “Perhaps I ought to be born once more? Begin from scratch.” Although he spoke virtually no English, he moved to New York in 1969. He was 24. He took courses in English as a second language at New York College, however tuition was pricey and courses left him chilly, so he opted for expertise over training. In his first ventures into the meals world, he was a dishwasher and bought barbecued hen skewers from a pushcart.

In 1970, he discovered a job at a sweets store known as the Ice Cream Connection. The proprietor, usually out of city, paid Mr. Yoshida $1.25 an hour and taught him to make the ice cream. Catering to the hippie crowd, the store bought flavors with names like Acapulco Gold and Panama Crimson. To those, Mr. Yoshida began including his personal creations, green-tea and red-bean ice cream, rarities at the moment. In these efforts to convey the flavors of his tradition to the East Village, you may detect the origins of Dojo and the whole lot else to return.

The East Village was harmful then, and Mr. Yoshida was recognized to maintain a protracted Japanese sword behind the ice cream counter for defense. A narrative goes {that a} younger John Belushi, after seeing Mr. Yoshida push back some troublemakers with the sword, was impressed to create his recurring samurai character on “Saturday Evening Dwell.”

“Folks mentioned that,” Mr. Yoshida admitted. “I’m unsure. After the samurai sketch, individuals mentioned, ‘Tony, that’s you.’”

The sword was not his solely weapon. Mr. Yoshida was an early adopter of martial arts, together with karate and aikido, and he wore unfastened sneakers as a younger man in case these abilities had been ever wanted.

“Somebody tried to rob Dojo, with Tony standing there,” mentioned Lorcan Otway, the proprietor of Theater 80 St. Marks, a bohemian establishment a block from Dojo. “He stepped out of his sneakers and started kicking in order that his toe simply touched his chin, driving the man again onto the road the place he had parked his getaway automobile, apparently. And Tony mentioned: “You! Get in automobile! Drive away!”