Oahu | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

July 2, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Makiki Christian Church

At age 29, Reverend Takie Okumura of Japan set sail for Hawaiʻi in 1894. He was initially appointed to serve as minister of the Japanese Christian Church, the predecessor to today’s Nuʻuanu Congregational Church.

Okumura left there and began his work in the section of Honolulu centering about Makiki district in November, 1902. The work commenced in a little shed on Kīnaʻu Street near a Japanese camp and without a single church member. (The Friend, November 1930)

Within a year, the shed became too small and a cottage across the street was rented which would accommodate about eighty people. By his untiring effort, Okumura was able to organize the Makiki Church with 24-members on April 8, 1904. The church continued to grow and was moved to the present building on the corner of King and Pensacola Streets in 1906. (The Friend, November 1930)

In early-1910, the Makiki Japanese Church (later known as the Makiki Christian Church) introduced the custom of one English sermon per month. The Church acquired property near McKinley High School (at the corner of Pensacola and Elm.) Then, in the 1930, a new, enlarged church was contemplated and then constructed. It was modeled after a Japanese Castle.

The “Makiki Castle” was the inspiration of the Reverend Okumura. Okumura asked Hego Fuchino to design the church.

Born and educated in Japan, Fuchino immigrated to Hawaiʻi at age 17 or 18 and worked his way through ʻIolani School and the University of Hawaiʻi. He worked as a land surveyor and engineer in Honolulu while he taught himself architecture, and became one of the first Japanese architects in Hawaiʻi.

One of Fuchino’s earliest works was the Kuakini Hospital, which he designed in 1919. He designed the Izumo Taisha Mission; commercial buildings; movie theaters such as the Haleiwa Theater; residences and apartments; and schools such as the Hawaiian Mission Academy.

Inspired by the early-Edo period Himeji Castle in Japan, the church is the only Christian church in the United States to be modeled after a sixteenth-century Japanese castle.

The Makiki Christian Church is a five-story redwood building whose main tower rises ninety feet above street level. A three- story parish hall and Sunday school, built four years after the tower, extends out from the tower to give the building a T- shaped floor plan.

“The castle-like edifice with its stone wall and high tower is after the style of the castle built by Oda Nobuuaga, famous Shogun, in 1577 at Omi. A number of years before that the feudal lord of Yaniato, Matsunaga, built a castle with a high tower and called his tower “Tenshukaku,” “ten” meaning heaven; “shu” lord; and “kaku,” lower or the place to worship the Lord of Heaven.” (The Friend, November 1930)

Rather than a building associated with war, Okumura indicated that the castle was a place of defense, meant to provide protection and peace, and that the earliest known building erected in Japan for Christian worship was Tamon Castle.

To the pastor, this design symbolized refuge, security and grandeur. Finally convinced it was not warlike, the congregation raised funds to build the tower, lobby and chapel in 1931. (Hibbard)

At the time of construction, China and Japan were at war; however, as a gesture of goodwill to show that animosity between the two nations did not extend to Hawaiʻi, Okumura specified that all building materials were to be purchased from City Mill, owned by KA Chung. (HHF)

Later, the castle became “A Place To Protect The Country” but it is true that the tower originated as “A Place To Worship God.” The Makiki Church erects its new edifice with its tower indicating the thought of the Psalmist who sang “Jehovah is my fortress—my high tower.” (The Friend, November 1930)

In November 1932 the tower was completed and in 1936 the Parish Hall was added to the church.

The churchyard is entered from the Elm Street side through a munekado (a gable-roofed gate supported by two pillars). The building’s entrance is fourteen feet high with a pair of massive solid wooden doors.

A large vestibule, thirty feet in height, runs parallel to the sanctuary and provides access to the church and the parish hall wing. The interior includes acid-stained concrete floors, columns with elbow brackets, and 164 ceiling panels depicting fruits, flowers, and vegetables painted by Yunosuke Ogura.

Before he died in 1951, Okumura also established the Okumura Boys and Girls Home, which provided young men and women affordable housing; he started the first Japanese-language school and the first AJA baseball league.

Makiki Christian Church is listed on the Hawaii Register of Historic Places (No. 80-14-9719, dated September 30, 1988;) it is one of the most photographed churches in the Islands.

June 28, 2025 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Podmore Fire Control

“There are strong arguments in favor of putting the principal harbors of the country in a state of adequate defense, even at very considerable cost. But the work should be done according to a well digested plan, which will give reasonable security that it will answer its purpose.” (New York Times, July 1, 1884)

Harbor defenses had constituted the primary element of the means employed by the Army for seacoast defense. Harbor defenses consisted of permanently installed guns of various calibers, which could be supplemented in an emergency by mobile coast artillery guns and controlled mine fields.

The Artillery District of Honolulu was established April 24, 1909 and consisted of Forts Ruger, DeRussy, Kamehameha and Armstrong (the District was renamed Headquarters Coast Defenses of Oʻahu.)

Following World War I and until the end of World War II, additional coastal armaments were constructed. Then, the Army mission was “the defense of Pearl Harbor Naval Base against damage from naval or aerial bombardment or by enemy sympathizers and attack by enemy expeditionary force or forces, supported or unsupported by an enemy fleet or fleets”.

Batteries at Fort Kamehameha, Fort Weaver and Fort Barrette (the latter two constructed in 1924 & 1935) completed pre-World War II coastal defense network for Pearl Harbor.

Batteries at Fort DeRussy and Fort Ruger were responsible for the defense of the South coast and Honolulu Harbor. While none of the large caliber guns were ever fired except in practice, the secondary anti-aircraft guns of coastal artillery units at Fort Kamehameha were credited with shooting down a number of attacking aircraft on the morning of December 7, 1941.

Following the Pearl Harbor attack, as part of the growing Coast Defense network, numerous Batteries and their associated Fire Control Stations were set up around the Islands.

A Fire Control Station is an observation and command center used to direct fire from gun Batteries on the coast. Fire Control personnel spot and determine where the guns should aim (typically working with others using triangulation;) Batteries have the guns to fire at the targets.

In 1917, Waimanalo Military Reservation was created (later renamed to Bellows Field in 1933;) with the outbreak of WWII, Bellows was transformed almost overnight into an important facility where aircraft were prepared for their duty in the Pacific Theater.

Part of the defense of the facility was Battery Wailea, located at Wailea Point (at the dividing line between Waimanalo and Lanikai.) Search lights were emplaced at the Battery. The Battery was operational from 1942 to 1945.

It was initially armed with two mobile 155-mm guns (about 6-inches, that could send 96-lb projectiles 17,400-yds,) later replaced with two 5-inch guns (58-lb projectile, 10,000-yd range) (later supplemented with two 3-inch guns (15-lb projectile, 11,100-yd range.))

Battery Wailea was supported by Fire Control Station Podmore. Podmore, completed February 28, 1943 – named for a nearby triangulation station, supported other armaments and was made up of two stations: a single story North structure (29A) and a double-tiered South station (29B & 29C.) (Bennett)

Pedestals in the bunkers were mounts for high-powered optical instruments for determining azimuth and range of ocean vessels.

An observer and recorder staffed each observation station. Data obtained from the observer’s optical instrument was telephoned by the recorder to the assigned gun battery by a local-battery operated telephone. (Bennett)

The troops manning the site slept and lived in tents in shifts on the slopes. Water and power lines were brought up from below to serve the bunkers and tent quarters from the Lanikai side of the Kaʻiwa Ridge.

The Podmore stations were located in the South Sector of Oʻahu’s two defense sectors, and tactically assigned to the Harbor Defenses of Kāneʻohe Bay located in a tunnel system dug into Ulupaʻu Crater on Mōkapu Peninsula.

The harbor defenses were set up to protect the vital Navy seaplane and landplane base at the Kāneʻohe Bay Naval Air Station built on the Mōkapu Peninsula. (Bennett)

After end of WWII, the parcel was declared surplus by the General Services Administration (GSA) and was offered for sale to the highest bidder. Both the State and the City & County did not offer to acquire the parcel and the property was sold to a private individual. (DLNR)

Today, a hiking trail takes you to the Fire Control Station.

The Ka‘iwa ridgeline may be accessed by one of two legal routes: the first is a City and County of Honolulu public access right-of-way that was established as a condition of subdivision approval for the Bluestone condominiums. The other access point is a State-owned trail corridor that was purchased for use by the Nā Ala Hele Trail and Access Program (Governor’s Executive Order 3610, 1994). (DLNR)

Most folks call the Podmore Fire Control bunker the Lanikai Pillboxes; a misnomer. As noted, the bunkers were built as an observation and command center for Battery Wailea and observation for Bellows Field.

A pillbox is a reinforced guard post, normally equipped with openings through which to fire weapons. The Podmore Fire Control Station was for observation, not weaponry.

In 2024, DLNR published as Final Environmental Assessment that calls for actions “to improve the Ka‘iwa Ridge Trail by implementing a trail management plan concurrently with the installation of physical improvements to the trail corridor.”

“Proposed improvements include a combination of surface treatments, erosion control measures, fencing or other barriers, and trail signage throughout the trail corridor.”

Lanikai Fire Control-(saito)

Waimanalo to Alala Pt-t4379_dd-1928-noting Podmoreequipment, not guns-punynari

Trail to lanikai-bunkers-punynari

The ‘Mokes’ from Fire Control Station Podmore

Start of the hike – lanikai-bunkers-punynari

lanikai-bunkers-punynari

Kailua and Fire Control Station Podmore

Heading up the trail to lanikai-bunkers

Almost to the top of trail to lanikai-bunkers-punynari

Example of 155mm gun (not specifically at Battery Wailea)

Example of 155mm gun (not specifically at Battery Wailea)-1943

Fire Control Station Podmore

Fire Control Station Podmore-(NotSoGreatHiking)

Fire Control Station Podmore_punynari

Fire Control Station Podmore-pedestals for viwing equipment, not guns-punynari

Fire Control Station Podmore-punynari

May 31, 2025 by Peter T Young 6 Comments

“Take it all except the Cannon Club”

When the Vice-President of Kapiʻolani Community College visited the Army headquarters at Schofield Barracks in 1965 to ask for the former Fort Ruger lands, the general was said to have replied “Take it all except the Cannon Club.” (Cultural Surveys)

Whoa … we’ve already gotten waaay ahead of ourselves. Let’s look back.

In 1884, Diamond Head went from private royal ownership to government property. Under King Kalākaua, the Diamond Head crater and part of the surrounding lands were transferred from the estate of King Lunalilo to the Hawaiian government. In 1904, the US government acquired 729-acres of Diamond Head as public domain.

From 1904 until 1950, Diamond Head was closed to the public at large. During this period of exclusive occupation, significant construction occurred within the crater. Bunkers, communication rooms, storage tunnels and coastal artillery fortifications were built. (LRB)

Between 1909-1921, the Hawaiian Coast Artillery Command had its headquarters at Fort Ruger and defenses included artillery regiments stationed at Fort Armstrong, Fort Barrette, Fort DeRussy, Diamond Head, Fort Kamehameha, Kuwa‘aohe Military Reservation (Fort Hase – later known as Marine Corps Base Hawaiʻi) and Fort Weaver.

The forts and battery emplacements batteries were dispersed for concealment and to insure that a projectile striking one would not thereby endanger a neighbor.

Fort Ruger Military Reservation was established at Diamond Head (Lēʻahi) in 1906. The Reservation was named in honor of Major General Thomas H Ruger, a Civil War hero and, later, superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point.

The fort included Battery Harlow (1910-1943); Battery Birkhimer (1916-1943); Battery Granger Adams (1935-1946); Battery Dodge (1915-1925); Battery Mills (1916-1925); Battery 407 (1944); Battery Hulings (1915-1925); and Battery Ruger (1937-1943).

Also at Fort Ruger was the Cannon Club, a social club with a restaurant built in 1945 for the officers and their families at Fort Ruger and other military installations.

“It wasn’t the fanciest place on the island, but it was the sort of old-style officers’ club that crisply preserved the illusion that each guest there, for the evening at least, was important and deserved some extra attention.”

“It was a place where people said “Sir” and “Ma’am” a lot; where you got fruit cocktail and thick juicy slabs of Porterhouse or prime rib, along with buttery rolls and piping hot baked potatoes heaped with real bacon bits … or watch the grown-ups glide across a dance floor that was open to the balmy breezes and the lambent sky, keeping time to the strains of a live band.” (Cultural Surveys)

The conclusion of World War II and the advent of nuclear and missile warfare made the coastal batteries obsolete. Thus in December 1955 the majority of the Fort Ruger land was turned over to the State of Hawai‘i.

The club, however, could not keep up with the times. Under a 1987 federal law, military clubs had to be self-sustaining to remain open, and the Army had to close the Cannon Club in 1997 as a result. For a few years, there was hope that the restaurant could reopen under private contractors, but the funding for the project fell through. (Cultural Surveys)

In 2001, the State acquired the 7.8-acre property across from the Kapiʻolani Community College campus (which is situated on former Fort Ruger land.)

A few years later, the Board of Land and Natural Resources approved a direct lease of the Cannon Club site to the University of Hawaiʻi for the Culinary Institute of the Pacific (under KCC) that was executed in August 2004. (I was Chair of DLNR at the time.)

Kapiʻolani Technical School was established near the Ala Wai in 1946; their first program was food service. In 1965, programs were realigned to fit the UH community college system (it was then renamed Kapiʻolani Community College – and eventually relocated to its present campus on the mauka slopes of Diamond Head.)

The Culinary Institute of the Pacific was formed in 2000 as a UH Community College System-wide consortium. Its mission is to provide career, technical and cultural culinary education. It is a collaboration with the Culinary Institute of America (CIA).

The new 65-year lease enables “the university to develop new instructional and restaurant facilities for KCC’s Culinary Institute of the Pacific at Diamond Head.”

“The Culinary Institute will expand opportunities for current students, past graduates and industry professionals seeking advance degrees in the culinary arts and managerial positions.” (Governor Lingle; UH)

The UH, through KCC, is developing new certificate and degree programs in culinary arts to serve State needs for advanced culinary instruction and training. Currently, the Community Colleges offer two-year Associate of Science degrees or non-credit culinary arts programs.

Based at the former Cannon Club, the new programs serve the needs of students completing the two year degree, industry professionals requiring advanced culinary education, and students from outside Hawai‘i seeking training in Hawai‘i Regional Cuisine. (UH)

The Culinary Institute of the Pacific at Diamond Head is a state-of-the art, environmentally sustainable culinary campus that will include a signature restaurant open to the public, competition kitchen, demonstration theater, advanced Asian culinary lab, a patisserie classroom, imu pit and theme garden plots. (Restaurant Week) (The restaurant is opening in the fall of 2025.)

Cannon Club-(vic&becky)

Fort_Ruger_Pool-(vic&becky)

Culinary_Institute_of_the_Pacific-KCC-Proposed-Layout-UH-PBR

Fort_Ruger_Tunnel-BWS

Fort Ruger Tunnel-BWS

May 23, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Peter Cushman Jones

Peter Cushman Jones was born in Boston on December 10, 1837; his father was Peter Cushman Jones, a Boston merchant, and his mother, Jane (Baldwin) Jones.

Young Jones was sent to the Boston Latin School and to “Bakers” School, in preparation for Harvard, but the lure of business was too strong, and as a young man he went to work as an office boy (at a salary of $50 a year.)

Led by an adventurous instinct, he set sail for Hawaiʻi, landing in the Islands on October 2, 1857 on the ship ‘John Gilpin.’

On the day of his arrival, as he passed up Fort Street jingling his 16-cents in his pocket, Henry P Carter, a clerk in C Brewer & Co, remarked, “Another Boston young man come to town to seek his fortune. We had better give him $10,000 and send him home again.” (Story of Hawaiʻi)

Jones and Carter later became fast friends and close business associates for 20 years at Brewer. Interestingly, Jones worked his way to the presidency of C Brewer & Co.

In 1892, with his son, Edwin A Jones, he formed a partnership under the name of The Hawaiian Safe Deposit and Investment Co., which has since become the Hawaiian Trust Co.

It was in 1893 that Jones, a 60-year-old businessman, persuaded close friends Joseph Ballard Atherton and Charles Montague Cooke to join him in organizing a new bank in the Islands. Four years later on December 27, 1897, Bank of Hawaiʻi became the first chartered and incorporated bank to do business in the Republic of Hawaiʻi.

The charter was issued by James A King, Minister of the Interior of the Republic of Hawaiʻi, and signed by Sanford Ballard Dole, president of the Republic. Bank of Hawaiʻi operated its first office from a two-story wooden building in downtown Honolulu. (BOH)

But all was not business for Jones; strongly religious, he served for years as a member of various church boards, a deacon of Central Union Church, president of the Board of the Hawaiian Evangelical Association and director of the YMCA.

Jones gave money for the establishment of the Portuguese Mission, and built the Pālama Chapel, which later grew to become Pālama Settlement, where social welfare work of every nature is still carried on.

A call into political activities came early in his career.

“I never cared for politics although I have always felt it my duty since I became a voter, to cast my vote for those I believed to be the best men, and at all times during the reign of Kalākaua, I felt that it was safe to vote against his followers.” (Jones, LDS-org)

He was sent to Washington, DC, as the bearer of dispatches from the kingdom having to do with the final signing of the Reciprocity Treaty, which gave Hawaiʻi free trade with the United States.

On November 8, 1892, Queen Liliʻuokalani appointed him Minister of Finance. He was a member of the Wilcox-Jones cabinet until January 12, 1893.

(That cabinet resisted the distillery, lottery, and opium bills, and was dismissed on January 12, 1893 when a Noble of the Reform Party switched allegiance, allowing the Queen to dismiss the cabinet that was preventing her from passing those bills.)

Mr. Jones was an influential figure in the revolution and served on the executive and advisory council of the provisional government.

He helped take over the government building including the treasury and financial records. All four of the Queen’s cabinet ministers came to the government building and agreed to turn over the station house and barracks to the Provisional Government. (Morgan Report)

In testimony in the Morgan Report, Jones stated, “It took about ten minutes to read the proclamation of the Provisional Government, which was read from the steps of the government building facing the Palace. During that 10 minutes about 50-60 armed men supporting the revolution arrived. Within 30 minutes there were 150-200 armed men. The reading of the proclamation finished at 2:45 on January 17.”

When later questioned about these events, “Senator Frye asked. ‘You were at the Government building frequently. Did you ever see, during this revolution, any of the American soldiers marching on the streets?’ Mr. Jones. ‘No.’”

“The Chairman. ‘Did you, as a member of the new Government, expect to receive any assistance from them?’ Mr. Jones. ‘No.’ The Chairman. ‘Do you know whether or not your fellows were looking for any help?’ Mr. Jones. ‘I never knew that they were.’ Senator Frye. ‘As a matter of fact, did they give any assistance to the revolution at all?’ Mr. Jones. ‘No’.”

“The Chairman. ‘Let me ask you right there, is it your belief that that revolution would have occurred if the Boston had not arrived in the harbor?’ Mr. Jones. ‘I believe it would have gone on just the same if she had been away from the islands altogether.’” (Morgan Report)

Jones served briefly as Minister of Finance in the Provisional government. However, “The strain of office and my utter unfitness for the high position caused me to entirely break down, and that with the sudden death of my only son Edwin on July 10, 1898, made me unfit for business for several years, culminating in a severe sickness in November 1902, and it was not until 1906 that I felt like assuming any responsibility.” (Jones; LDS)

On February 26, 1902 Peter Cushman Jones, Ltd leased the vacant lot it owned at Merchant and Alakea Streets to Joseph William Podmore (a former English sailor who opened his own firm for insurance, shipping, commission and as agent for others, and, a real estate investor.) He built the Podmore Building.

Jones later acquired the building and donated it to the Hawaiian Board of Missions for use as a permanent home. It was later used by the Advertiser Publishing Co. Ltd who published the Honolulu Advertiser there until 1928.

Jones Street, near University and Oʻahu was named for Peter Cushman Jones. The name was changed when a prospective renter of a fine house on this street said: “I’ll not live in Honolulu on Jones Street!” The landlady got busy with a petition and had the name changed to Alaula Way (Way of the Dawn.) (Clark)

Peter Cushman Jones died in Honolulu on April 23, 1922 at the age of 84.

May 17, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kalihi

“Kalihi used to have a – you won’t believe this – but sort of a country club atmosphere because homes weren’t all crowded the way they are now. There were open spaces. When you flushed your bathroom toilet, you didn’t have to worry about your neighbor hearing it.”

“You could raise your voice a little bit and nobody was close enough to hear you. Everybody knew who everybody else was. Of course, that’s all gone. There’s no empty space in Kalihi anymore, except a few parks maybe, school grounds.”

“Used to be vegetable gardens, flower gardens, taro patches, grazing land, chicken farms. Not anymore. Even the hillsides are covered now with homes.”

“But it used to be a quiet, really quiet, open area. You could walk to any place you wanted to go. No place was too far to walk, that is, within Kalihi. But today, well, it’s just grown, that’s all.” (Adolph ‘Duffie’ [rhymes with ‘Goofy’] Mendonca, UH Ethnic Studies Oral History)

Kalihi, a multi-ethnic working-class district located west of downtown Honolulu, has a long history as a home of island immigrants. In the early years of this century, Kalihi, then a residential district of middle- and upper-class Hawaiians and part-Hawaiians, attracted Chinese and Portuguese residents.

As Japanese, Puerto Rican, and other sugar workers left the plantations, many of them settled in Kalihi. In the decades following, Filipinos, Samoans, Koreans, and Southeast Asians joined them. (UH Ethnic Studies Oral History)

In the 1910s, “both School Street and Houghtailing Road were dirt roads. School Street extended (Ewa only) as far as Kalihi Street, and Kalihi Street went up into Kalihi Valley. In the Waikiki direction – this was before McInerny Tract was subdivided – there (were) a (few) scattered houses.”

“The first (sizable improvement) was the insane asylum (on the present site of) the Hawaii Housing [Authority]. And beyond that were, on both sides, taro patches until one got near Liliha Street. Liliha Street was quite urbanized, as (was) School Street beyond (Liliha and toward Nuuanu Street).”

“When (I was) a youngster, my mother had to prepare food on wood stoves and (I) had to chop (kiawe) firewood (and thence there was) the gradual changeover to kerosene stove and kerosene lamps.”

“When I was born and for many years, we had no electricity, no drinking water. But with McInerny Tract (being opened up), water (mains) came in, sewers came in, electric system came in. More than that, (now) look at what you can enjoy—TV”. (Arthur Akinaka (born in 1909), UH Ethnic Studies Oral History)

“In those days, the principal school was Kalihi-Waena, which was right across the street from Fernandez Park. And that went to eighth grade. See, we just had that grade and then high school. It was later on that they broke it down to intermediate and junior high school, and high school.”

“So, it was customary, not only in Kalihi but in lot of areas of Hawaii, where after the eighth grade the boys went to work. Lot of the boys didn’t start school until they were eight, nine years old. Then eight years in grade school would make ‘em sixteen, seventeen years old by the time they came out.”

“So they were expected to go to work and help the families. And of course, a lot of them didn’t have any desire to continue their education.”

“But it seemed like in our area, we had a higher percentage of boys that continued high school and college. Why? I don’t want to be so bold as to say we may have had a better educated group of parents or parents who were more educationally inclined, who wanted their children.”

“Because if you go back before my time, lot of the old-timers that lived in the Kalihi area were prominent in the old kingdom days. They were prominent people…. I’d read where they used to work for the kingdom or the territory.”

“It was apparently a good area, good residential area, in the old days because of its closeness to downtown, for one reason.”

For those going to high school, many went “to McKinley or St. Louis. We also had a couple of other high schools. Punahou, of course. Then we had Kamehameha. And we had what we called HMA – Honolulu Military Academy.”

“Most of the students that went to those schools were from the Fourth District. See, Oahu used to be Fourth District and Fifth District. Everything Ewa of Nuuanu was Fifth District.”

“Everything on the Kaimuki side is Fourth District. The wealthier people generally, of course, lived in the Fourth District. Most of the children that went to Punahou or HMA came from up that way.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the beauty of Kalihi Valley and the Kalihi area. It’s close to the ocean. Fishing, crabbing. So it was logical. Lot of our residential areas that you see today are that way because they ran out of space in the more city areas, closer to the city.”

“The transportation was a big item. Not many people had cars. So they had to live near their place of employment. A lot of them walked to work.” (Adolph ‘Duffie’ Mendonca, UH Ethnic Studies Oral History)

“Well, it was sensible, wasn’t it? And as they earned money and they started new families, they started to move away, yeah? I remember very well as a youngster, very, very few people lived east of the Kahala Mall area.”

“The streetcar line ended at Koko Head Avenue, right across from the theater – used to be Kaimuki Theater which has been torn down. That was the end of the line. The line went from there to Fort Shafter, the beginning of Moanalua. Then there was a line from up Liliha Street that went to Waikiki.”

There was a “constantly changing composition of the residents. The old-timers either relocate or leave this good earth. And mostly because they better, sometimes, their economic status.”

“The other thing is living here in the substandard lot sizes and deteriorating neighborhood. “No one individual can do very much towards modernizing, but ends up just perpetuating what is handed down.” (Arthur Akinaka, UH Ethnic Studies Oral History)

By the late 1950s, Kalihi Shopping Center came up, and by the early 1960s, Kamehameha Shopping Center came up. (UH Ethnic Studies Oral History)

“People moved because Kalihi Kai became industrialized and got noisy, plus the property became very much in demand. I guess some people sold and moved to a better residential district.” (Thelma Yoshiko Izumi, UH Ethnic Studies Oral History)

“I think, maybe when a guy reaches the top and he looks back, and he begins to wonder, what is important in life, was it worth all the effort and time?”

“When you get old, you get near the end of the line, and pretty soon you’re going to be forgotten. And you wonder whether all the things you did, which seemed very important and necessary at the time you did it, just how important was it?”

“And the fact that since most of our people are not rich people, if you associate with the more unfortunate people, you appreciate what they’re going through. Their life compared to somebody who’s inherited a lot or blessed with more brains or better opportunities, or married the right girl, had the right parents.”

“It’s something that makes you feel like somebody coming out of Kalihi that gets up there is worth his salt more than somebody who’s born with a silver spoon. At least that guy worked for what he got. He doesn’t feel that anything was handed to him.”

“How could somebody born with a silver spoon feel that way if he’s never been down on the bottom? How do you know how high a mountain is unless you’ve been down in the bottom of the valley, eh? So, it affects your outlook, I think.”

“I never thought the area I lived in was the bottom. I never did feel that. I never did feel that Kalihi was the bottom of anything, really. I always thought that Kakaako was more down the bottom because that was a built-up area. And you had more of the closeness of homes, and stores. You know, more populated.”

“Kalihi is a big area. From the mountain to the ocean. Plenty room. And we had good climate, good atmosphere out there. Things grew well. Generally green. People took care of their yards, planted nice plants and trees. In many respects, it’s beautiful.”

“I’ve never understood why – maybe a little corner or spot within the area wasn’t too good, but majority, the largest part of Kalihi was a very nice place. Very nice. I’m sorry that it’s inherited such a bad carryover. I don’ t think it deserved it.” (Adolph ‘Duffie’ Mendonca, UH Ethnic Studies Oral History)