The family behind Haebangchon's iconic "street of jars" hoped to preserve the decades-old display, but a complaint ultimately led to its removal
Rows of traditional Korean earthenware pots that lined a wall at the entrance to Haebangchon for four decades were removed this week.
Hanshin Onggi, a pottery shop that has operated in Haebangchon since 1967 and maintained the decades-old display, began clearing the pots, or onggi, on Monday.
According to the shop owner, the store had received a government notice seeking five years' worth of fees for use of its land.
"We had no choice but to remove it," owner Yoon Yoo-jin told The Korea Herald.
Yoon is the youngest daughter-in-law of Hanshin Onggi founder Shin Yeon-geun and has run the shop since Shin died in December 2024.
Shin had long been a familiar figure in Haebangchon. After her husband died in 1982, she continued running the business while raising their six children and began stacking onggi one by one along the neighboring US military base wall to make the pottery more visible to passersby.
Reflecting on the removal in an Instagram post on Monday, the owner described how the display had become part of everyday life in Haebangchon.
"Foreigners returning after decades, elderly residents and even young people who didn't know what onggi were all loved Haebangchon's 'street of jars,'" she wrote.
The Korea Herald reached out to Yongsan-gu on Friday, but the district office said it was unaware of the issue.
tammy@heraldcorp.com
