Chinatown | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

May 13, 2020 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

ʻAʻala International Park

Hard as it may be to conceive today, in the 1880s the entire area near ʻAʻala Park and the OR&L train station (now a Human Services Building) was under water. The original 1889 OR&L station was built on stilts and the train tracks ran on hastily-placed fill.

Just ʻEwa of Chinatown was swampy lowland bordered Nuʻuanu Stream; it was an area that many wished to see developed. It used to include private lands that were conveyed to the Minister of Interior in 1871.

On May 14, 1898, the Republic of Hawaiʻi officially adopted “an act to convert land at Kaliu … into free public recreation grounds, and to maintain the same as such under the supervision of the Minister of the Interior.”

They called the nearly 4-acres “River Park.” (The Territorial government confirmed the same in 1915.)

The project was underway in 1898, with the masonry work completed the following year walling in Nuʻuanu stream’s banks, allowing sand and rocks to be brought in. Nuʻuanu Stream formed the Waikīkī boundary of the new park, and Chinatown the other three sides.

Reportedly, it was announced in 1900, when it was decided the park should be converted from “a barren waste composed of harbor dredging into a resort of beauty.”

Bounded on one side by Nuʻuanu Stream and by Chinatown – with its laundries, shops, slaughterhouses, rail yards, piers and tenements – on the other three sides, the park was born.

Later named ʻAʻala Park (officially, ʻAʻala International Park,) it featured a bandstand and two baseball diamonds and baseball became the park’s defining image. The ʻAʻala Park comfort station, built in 1916, was the first public restroom in Honolulu.

ʻAʻala Park, dedicated to “Almighty Baseball” in 1902, evolved as a result of insistent public clamor that called for filling in this marshy section of lwilei.

Avid fans came out to watch their local teams – the Honolulus, the Kamehamehas, the Punahous, the Athletes and the Maile Ilimas (the top five teams in 1902.)

Later, Japanese and Chinese leagues were formed. “ʻAʻala Park is a public park where baseball is almost constantly in progress.” (Schnack)

On a week-end afternoon during the 1900s, two games would often be in progress at the same time. Japanese push carts bristling with soda water bottles, peanuts, cigars, cakes and candy, served the spectators rain or shine. (Saga – Scott)

Horse drawn hacks, filled with boisterous participants and excited onlookers, converged upon ʻAʻala from all parts of Honolulu. Umbrellas sprouted like magic when showers moved down Nuʻuanu Valley, folded with the clouds passing, and then reappeared when the mid-day sun beat mercilessly down. (Saga – Scott)

The park, one of the oldest in Hawaiʻi, benefitted from the first project of the then newly-formed Outdoor Circle (TOC;) founded by Mrs. Frederick J. (Cherilla) Lowrey, Miss Frances Lawrence, Mrs. Charles M. (Anna Rice) Cooke, Mrs. Henry (Ida) Waterhouse, Mrs. George (Laura) Sherman, Mrs. Isaac M. (Catharine) Cox and Miss Kulamanu Ward, TOC’s mission was to “Keep Hawai‘i clean, green and beautiful.”

The Outdoor Circle’s maiden project (1912) was the planting of twenty two monkey-pod trees “to shade the children’s play space,” this being the City’s first playground.

ʻAʻala also boasted a sizeable bandstand ʻEwa of the baseball diamonds with a two-story tenement conveniently overlooking the activity. Although political rallies were regularly held at the Park, the name ʻAʻala to Honoluluan’s was synonymous with baseball. (Saga – Scott)

Until 1947, the train ran from Kaʻena Point into Honolulu, with the line ending directly across from ʻAʻala Park. “Every day the train would leave here, go down to Kaʻena Point, go to Kahuku, go load up the sugar and pineapple in Waialua area, come around the point, stop in Makua to pick up cattle if they had cattle and load up the sugar and go back to town.” (HawaiiHistory)

Chinatown and ʻAʻala Park were the meeting place for urban and rural, land and sea, work and leisure, and cultures from all over the world. (HawaiiHistory)

Half a century later, most of what is known as the ʻAʻala Triangle consisted of slum housing, dance halls, pool rooms and a dilapidated three-story building that housed the ʻAʻala Pawn Shop, at the point of North King and Beretania streets.

Then, in the late-1960s, every structure in the triangle was razed and the entire 4-acre wedge transformed into a landscaped “gateway to Honolulu.” That’s when the City and County of Honolulu (City) asked that the land be conveyed to the City.

By the 1980s, the homeless had returned, along with a growing number of drug dealers, prostitutes and what Honolulu City representatives referred to as other “unsavory elements.” Last time I looked, it’s still a magnet for the homeless.

(Lots of information here is from Saga by Scott, Honolulu-The Story of OR&L and HawaiiHistory-org. The image shows ʻAʻala Park (Saga, Scott.))

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20001121 CTY AALA 01. Aala Park is undergoing renovations. This photo taken from top of Hale Pauahi. SB photo by Ken Ige.

April 1, 2020 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kaumakapili Church

From its first thatched-roof adobe structure erected in 1839 on the corner of Smith and Beretania Streets, to its present day structure built in 1910, the people of Kaumakapili have survived Hawaiʻi’s most turbulent times.

Starting in 1837, “the common Hawaiian folk of Honolulu” started petitioning Rev. Hiram Bingham, head of the Hawaiian Mission, to establish a second church or mission in Honolulu (Kawaiahaʻo being the first).

Governor Kekuanaoa “begged to express his manao that it should be in the village” (Honolulu); specifically, in the district of Kaumakapili where 12,000 to 13,000 people lived. (The Friend)

They requested that the Rev. Lowell Smith be their pastor. The 1837 annual ʻAha Paeʻaina (the annual meeting and gathering of the churches and ministers) granted their request.

The Reverend Lowell Smith and wife, Abigail Tenny Smith, arrived in Honolulu in 1833, as members of the Sixth Company. (Reverend Smith served as the first minister of Kaumakapili Church until his retirement in 1869.)

Chief Abner Pākī and wife, Konia, granted the lot on the corner of Smith and Beretania Streets for this mission – the area then known as Kaumakapili. Pākī and Konia were parents of Bernice Pauahi Bishop, founder of the Kamehameha Schools.

On April 1, 1838, the first Sabbath of the month, the Rev. Hiram Bingham assisted Rev. Lowell Smith in organizing the church, “twenty-two persons were received by letter from Kawaiahao church two from Ewa and one from Kauai and forty-nine were received on profession of faith.” (Smith) This was the commencement of Kaumakapili Church.

“In early days the church was spoken of as “Smith’s Church.” Moreover it was long thought of as the church of the common people, as distinguished from Kawaiahaʻo, known as the Chiefs’ Church.” (The Friend)

The first Church building was constructed of adobe with a thatched pili roof and was large enough to accommodate 2,500 people. On August 29, 1839 the church building was dedicated.

In 1865, as King Kamehameha V was nearing death, he asked High Chiefess Bernice Pauahi to be his successor, but she refused. According to law, an election was held and Kaumakapili was used as Honolulu’s town hall during this and many future political crises.

The adobe building was torn down in 1881 to make way for a new brick edifice.

King Kalākaua took great interest in the church and wanted an imposing church structure with two steeples. His argument was, “…that as a man has two arms, two eyes, two ears, two legs, therefore, a church ought to have two steeples.”

The cornerstone for the new church was laid on September 2, 1881 by Princess Liliʻuokalani (on her birthday.) Seven years later the new building was completed.

It was an imposing landmark, first of its kind, and visible to arriving vessels and land travelers. It was dedicated on Sunday, June 10, 1888.

This church played an ironic role during Kalākaua’s reign.

The Honolulu citizens held a meeting in this building protesting Kalākaua’s capriciousness and appointment of an Italian-American adventurer named Moreno as his Minister of Foreign Affairs and the appointment of a new cabinet, whose “grotesque unfitness” caused the people to be up in arms. The result was the dismissal of Moreno four days after his appointment.

In January, 1900, disaster struck. The presence of bubonic plague in the Chinatown area caused the health authorities to take drastic measures by burning sections of Chinatown. Sparks fell on the wooden steeples and fire engulfed the entire building leaving only the brick walls standing.

Honolulu’s landscape was changing, so the old site at Smith and Beretania Streets was sold and a new one bought at the corner of King and the then Simerson (now Pālama) Streets in Pālama. Services were held in a temporary small wooden chapel on Austin Lane, behind the old Palama Fire Station.

Here, for the next 10 years, the church developed its ministry with a strong emphasis on Sunday School ministering; particularly to the girls from the old Reform School that was situated on the site of the present Kaʻiulani Elementary School.

During these years and the years to follow Rev. Poepoe fostered the idea of enlisting young Hawaiian men into the Christian ministry. This time of Kaumakapili’s history enjoyed a very active Sunday School under several outstanding superintendents – among whom were Augustus Smith, only son of Founders Rev. Lowell and Abigail Smith, and one of their daughters, Mrs. Benjamin F. Dillingham.

On May 7, 1910, Master Harold R. Erdman, great grandson of the Rev. Lowell Smith, broke ground for the third church building. It was dedicated on June 25, 1911, the same day in which the 89th Annual Conference of the Hawaiian Evangelical Association (ʻAha Paeʻaina) was hosted by the church.

On the day of dedication of the original two stained glass windows, the great grandson of Rev. Lowell Smith, Lowell S. Dillingham, was baptized on September 13, 1912.

The Gothic Revival-style church is the most prominent feature of the urban Kalihi-Palama neighborhood. The bell tower steeple stands 96 feet above the surrounding properties. The campus features an expanse of grass lawn at the front of the building bordered by two paved parking lots and is surrounded by a low dressed-basalt wall with piers at the walk and driveway openings.

In the late twenties and early fifties, Kaumakapili was known as the “Queen of the Hawaiian Churches for she had begun missions and sister churches’ relationships as her witness to the community.” The inspiration and information on this post came primarily from kaumakapili-org and The Friend.

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Chinatown from King and River Streets. Only the shells of Kaumakapili Church (2nd) and the fire station remain standing-1900

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Kaumakapili Church (2nd) in ruins after Chinatown fire of 1900

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October 8, 2019 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Li Ling Ai

1941 – At the Academy Awards, John Ford accepted the Oscar for his directing of the ‘Grapes of Wrath,’ ‘Pinocchio’ won for best Original Score and ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ won for best song.

Keep this in mind; it will put some context to the end of this story. First, let’s look back.

In 1896, western-trained doctors from the Canton School of Medicine, Li Khai Fai and Kong Tai Heong, married and then emigrated to Honolulu from China.

A few short years later, they were one of the first to diagnose the bubonic plague in Honolulu’s Chinatown. This led to the “state of emergency,” quarantine and subsequent “sanitary fire” of Chinatown in 1900.

Although properly set, the fire soon went out of control and caused the destruction of all premises bounded by Kukui Street, River Street, Queen Street (presently Ala Moana Boulevard) and Nuʻuanu Avenue. No lives were lost in the fire, but 4,000 people were left homeless, without food and with little of anything else.

Li Khai Fai was vilified by many Chinese for reporting one of the first bubonic plague cases to the authorities, resulting in what author James C Mohr calls “the worst civic disaster in Hawaiian history” next to the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor — the accidental burning of the entire Chinatown district and the forced quarantine of all its inhabitants. (Lung)

But that’s not what this story is about – the rest of this story deals with conflict in the Li’s homeland, China – and, the telling of that story has more Hawaiʻi links.

Li Khai Fai and Kong Tai Heong had several children; a daughter, Li Ling Ai, was born in Honolulu and was a 1926 graduate of Punahou School and later a graduate from the University of Hawaiʻi.

In 1930, she traveled to Pekin and studied Chinese theater. The second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) forced her to leave China.

Before 1937, China and Japan fought in small, localized engagements – so-called “incidents”. The last of these was the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937, marking the beginning of total war between the two countries.

Initially, the invading Japanese scored major victories in Shanghai, and by the end of 1937 captured the Chinese capital of Nanking. After failing to stop the Japanese in Wuhan, the Chinese central government moved to Chongqing in the Chinese interior.

In 1937, Li Ling Ai and Rey Scott tell the stories of that war through film – ‘Kukan,’ a color documentary of China at war.

Though she defied tradition in many ways, Li Ling Ai identified closely with her father and his efforts to bring reform to China. After the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, it became her mission to bring China’s plight to the attention of the western world.

Educating Americans about the history and culture of China was an integral part of that mission, and she would employ her dramatic personality and exotic beauty to do so. (Lung)

When it premiered in New York on June 23, 1941 the US was still maintaining a policy of neutrality in military conflicts abroad. But the film clearly depicted the brutality of the invading Japanese military against the citizens of China, and it became a rallying point for those who wanted to sway public opinion towards US engagement in the Chinese war. (Lung)

The film about the Chinese resistance to Japanese aggression during the early part of World War II was screened at the White House for President Roosevelt, was widely covered in newspapers across the country and was the subject of editorials in papers like the New York Times and Chicago Daily Times.

“A crudely made but intensely interesting fact film about modern China, the land of unconquerable people … “Kukan” means “heroic action” – or perhaps, more freely, “courage” – and a more appropriate word could not be found to express the spirit of this film.” (New York Times, June 24, 1941)

“’Kukan’ is one of the few pictures ever made about China which conveys an overpowering sense of the vastness and variety of that great nation, of the tenacity of its millions of people and the mass strength which lies in its depths.” (New York Times, June 24, 1941)

In 1941, Rey Scott was awarded a Special Academy Award for “for his extraordinary achievement in producing Kukan, the film record of China’s struggle, including its photography with a 16mm camera under the most difficult and dangerous conditions,” making Kukan the first American feature documentary to win an Academy Award. Co-producer Li Ling Ai was also listed as the film’s “Technical Advisor.”

However, after the war’s end and the Communist takeover of China, the film faded from view along with the story of its creators. In fact, until recently, Kukan was officially categorized as a “lost” film by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

At the end of 2009, after a year of preliminary research into the life of Li Ling Ai, producer Robin Lung discovered the only known copy of ‘Kukan’ and has been on a mission ever since to find out more about the film and its creators.

Lung’s quest to restore the badly damaged print of Kukan and the story of its makers to their rightful place in history sends her from one end of the country to the other, searching for answers in the past to validate her vision for the future.

In a quickly changing future obsessed 21st Century world, “Finding Kukan” (a film on the film) pauses to look back, examining how history is made vs. how it’s recorded; how it shapes current issues surrounding race, gender, identity and art; and why a healthy future depends on preserving diverse stories from our past.

Like ‘Kukan’, ‘Finding Kukan’ has been recognized with American Library Association “Notable Film for Adults” 2019; Broadcast on PBS World’s America ReFramed Series, May 2018; Audience Award, LA Asian Pacific Film Festial 2017; Honorable Mention, Documentary Award, CAAMFest 2017; Best Documentary, Special Jury Award, Hawaii International Film Festival 2016; Courage in Cinema Award, UMass Boston Film Series 2017; Audience Award Honorable Mention, Boston Asian American Film Festival 2017.

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September 16, 2019 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Historic Curbs and Sidewalks

As early as 1838, sidewalks along Honolulu streets were constructed, usually of wood. Paved streets were unknown until 1881; in that year, the first, Fort Street, was paved.

The first sidewalk made of brick was laid down in 1857 fronting a shop on Merchant Street; Hawaii’s first concrete sidewalk was poured in front of a store on Queen Street in 1886.

Here are a couple stories about some ‘historic’ curbs and sidewalks in Honolulu. (Remember, State law, §6E-2 says “Historic property” means any building, structure, object, district, area, or site, including heiau and underwater site, which is over fifty years old.)

As a UH graduate, I am very familiar with the area known as “the Quarry” on the UH campus. We still go down to that area of the campus to watch UH athletics.

From 1889 to 1949, Mōʻiliʻili Quarry provided the stone that was used to build Honolulu’s streets, sidewalks and curbstones, as well as some of its prominent buildings.

Holes were cut into the rock wall, using pneumatic drills. Dynamite was fitted into the holes, and its detonation would bring the entire face of the wall down, then they took the rock to the crushing plant within the Quarry site.

The University wanted the Quarry site for campus expansion and the Hawaiʻi legislature authorized the purchase in 1945

The first major and permanent construction of facilities in the Quarry began in 1956; and in 1957 Klum Gym, Team Lockers-Varsity Building, Locker Building, classrooms and an indoor enclosed boxing room were completed.

As you walk along Honolulu streets, look at the old lava rock curbs; it’s very likely these came from the Mōʻiliʻili Quarry. These curbs are historic and serve as examples of the distinctive method of street construction in Honolulu during the late-1800s and the early-1900s.

These curb stones are rough-hewn below grade, but squared at their exposed surfaces. The width and height of the exposed surfaces are typically about 6 inches, but the buried depth is several feet. They are of varying lengths, from 2′ to over 5′. Some curbs at intersections exhibit a slight curvature to follow the contour of the street corner.

In the mid- to late-19th century, sailing vessels from China or the continent bound for Honolulu to pick up sandalwood or sugar cane would fill their holds with granite as ballast (it added stability to the sailing vessels and weren’t needed when loaded with heavy cargo.)

As more and more ships dumped their granite ballast on the docks, someone came up with the idea to use them for sidewalks. These blocks are scattered throughout Chinatown, and many were used in the construction of a few buildings.

The original stones were several inches thick and were placed side by side with no gap between them – many of these are still around. However, today, there are reproductions of these sidewalks on Maunakea Street

In the early 1900s, the city of Honolulu was engaged in modernizing its streets and replacing dusty footpaths with broad sidewalks. The following appeared in the Hawaiian Annual of 1900:

“Official notice had been published requiring property owners to construct concrete sidewalks throughout the city, as far out as Thomas Square, according to specifications. This public improvement is in progress, to be followed by the re-macadamizing (paving) of many streets.”

John Walker (later, the firm Walker-Moody) pursued this business and soon his sidewalks proliferated throughout the city. Unlike modern sidewalks, his were a very dark gray due to the addition of charcoal, and were given a smooth, almost polished finish, many of them labeled with the name John Walker etched in the curbstones (few remain.)

Back then, the name John Walker was virtually synonymous with sidewalks. So well known was the name the unemployed men, when asked, “Who are you working for”, often answered, “John Walker”. In other words, they were pounding the sidewalks looking for work.

Again, historic property is generally defined as something that is over 50-years old. In addition to criminal penalties, State law may impose Civil Penalties on any person who violates the law with fines up to $10,000 for each separate violation (each day of each violation constitutes a separate violation.)

Rather than remove the stones, when contractors are making repairs to City streets, they are required to reinstall the curbing after the completion of the work. If reinstallation isn’t possible, contractors are required to salvage the stones and hand them over to the city for storage and later reuse on other city road projects.

When I was at DLNR, we were involved with a case where historic curb stones were being used as part of a decorative walkway in a private garden. (They were ultimately returned.)

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July 17, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Pālama Settlement

Central Union Church dates back to the days of the Seaman’s Bethel Church in 1828. It was formally founded in 1887 and it moved into its present location in 1924.

In addition to developing new institutions within the church, the congregation made great strides in the field of missionary work in the city of Honolulu, including the beginning of the present Pālama Settlement.

Pālama, then a sleepy neighborhood of neat little cottages and taro patches, was chosen by philanthropist and Central Union members Mr. and Mrs. PC Jones as the site for a new chapel.

On the makai side of King street, opposite Liliha Street, the chapel was dedicated on June 1, 1896, and presented to Central Union by the Joneses, on the condition that the church …

… “maintain public preaching there on Sundays, a weekly prayer meeting, sustain a Sabbath school and also an occasional social for the residents of Pālama, the services to be conducted in the English language.”

Located west of Nuʻuanu Stream, near Downtown Honolulu, Pālama was home to mostly working-class Hawaiian families.

Walter F. Dillingham, long active in philanthropic endeavors in Honolulu, once observed of Pālama: “One must picture Honolulu at the end of the century with its mixture of races, their variety of foods, dress, cultures, customs and living habits. All this gave Honolulu a character and personality not duplicated in any American city.”

“The business section was composed mainly of low framed buildings with corrugated iron roofs near the water front. Streets were unpaved, horse-drawn vehicles, with the ox-cart was a common sight. Taro patches, duck ponds and even sugar cane grew in the section of Palama. It was in such a section that Palama Chapel was built and which grew to be Palama Settlement.” (HJH)

In 1900, as Honolulu health officials attempted to rid the nearby Chinatown area of bubonic plague, fire destroyed a four-block section. Displaced residents took up residence in newly built tenements in Pālama, changing the physical, social and economic make-up of the community.

The chapel’s staff located housing for many of the displaced and took care of the injured and children. It also ministered to the needs of immigrants who moved into the Pālama area soon after arriving in the Islands.

Social worker James Arthur Rath, Sr. and his wife, Ragna Helsher Rath, turned Pālama Chapel into Pālama Settlement (in September 1906,) a chartered, independent, non-sectarian organization receiving contributions from the islands’ elite.

“… they called them ‘settlement houses,’ the philosophy being that the head worker, as they called them, settled in the community. Instead of going in to spend the day working and coming out, they settled in, raised their families there and in that way learned …”

“… one, what the people needed; two, gained their confidence so that they could help them fulfill their needs; and then, three, went ahead and designed programs for exactly what the people needed.”

“So they were settlers and therefore they called them settlement houses. Which is what the origin of Pālama Settlement was because my father and my mother settled there and all five of us children were born and raised in our home in the settlement.” (Robert H. Rath, Sr)

The Raths established the territory’s first public nursing department, a day-camp for children with tuberculosis, a pure milk depot, a day nursery, a night school, and low-rent housing.

In 1908, an indoor swimming pool was opened, and a year later, a gymnasium and bowling alley were built above it. Later, outdoors, a playground, tennis court, and basketball court were added.

Also that year, a new Parish House was erected on an adjacent property at Richards Street, to be used for Sunday School classes and midweek meetings

After a territory-wide fund-raising effort, in 1925 Pālama Settlement moved to its present location with nine buildings spread over eight acres of land on Vineyard and Pālama streets.

Over the years, a medical clinic, an outpatient clinic and the Strong-Carter Dental Clinic were established along with annual circuses, athletic competitions, social and community-service clubs, boardinghouses for women and a preschool. Classes and events relating to music, arts, vocations, and athletics were also offered.

World War II and the postwar era brought about widespread changes in Hawai‘i’s social, economic, and political environment. These developments, in turn, led to changes in the way social agencies such as Pālama Settlement addressed community needs.

Observers noted that Pālama Settlement was departing from its original settlement house philosophy by offering programs for fees and catering to a broad cross section of people regardless of where they lived.

The 1960s and 1970s were periods of re-evaluation, adjustment, and growth, with the settlement’s programs becoming more people-centered rather than activity-centered, stressing human and community needs as opposed to uncoordinated, departmentalized activities, following the large-scale social and economic programs being implemented nationally.

Civil rights and anti-poverty legislation brought large amounts of federal monies to Pālama Settlement for local programs geared to at-risk youth and community development.

Pālama Settlement – a smaller one due to the widening of Vineyard Boulevard and the construction of the H-1 Freeway – continues to exist as a nonprofit, nongovernmental agency dedicated to helping needy families and at-risk youths.

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