Tokyo to open "world's largest' city hall in April

In terms of size at least, Tokyo residents might have good reason to believe you can't fight City Hall. Theirs will soon be the world's largest. Come April, a 48-story mountain of marble and glass will open for business in this city of nearly 12-million. Towering 795 feet high, it will be Japan's tallest building.

And although a taller behemoth is under construction in the nearby port of Yokohama, Tokyo officials said at an open house Thursday that their city jewel will never be beat in one category: the view.

"We expect people hoping to get a look from the observation floor to have to wait in lines up to three miles long," said Seii Hoshino, who was in charge of construction for three years.

Officials acknowledge that getting 13,000 municipal workers _ and their 260,000 boxes of papers _ settled into the new City Hall in March will be a major task. But they are confident of opening on April 1.

That is just before elections that may be run without the man most instrumental in giving the Tokyo government its new home _ Gov. Shunichi Suzuki, 80.

A widely respected bureaucrat-turned-politician, Suzuki took over the reins of the city in 1979, and in less than three years erased a $1.5-billion debt.

Though he has gone on to build Tokyo's surplus to $6.6-billion, his popularity began to erode last year when media reports charged that he was trying to make City Hall into a personal castle.

Suzuki, who is 80 years old, has expressed a strong desire to seek an unprecedented fourth term, but he has lost key political support and has said he might not run.

About 11.85-million people, or 10 percent of Japan's total population, live in Tokyo.