 Hello everyone and welcome to Think Tech Hawaii's Doko Momo Hawaii show. I am the host of this show for this week. I am DeSoto Brown, the historian at Bishop Museum and Doko Momo is an international organization that is essentially a fan club if you will for mid-century architecture and that roughly is the period between 1930 and 1980. Now today I'm not talking about architecture specifically so much as I'm talking about a place up long which you can see a variety of architectural styles and that is what you see behind me. That is going to be a very unfamiliar picture. Where the heck are we? Well, you're just about to be told where we are to find out the history of this part of Kulululu. Let's go to the first slide and this is it. This is Kopiolani Boulevard. That's what we're talking about today and this is the view most of us get of Kopiolani Boulevard from our cars as we drive along it because it's a major thoroughfare here in the city of Kulululu along with King Street and Baratanya Street and even though this picture was taken a long time ago in the 1980s it still looks valid today. Well let's go to our next photograph and here's the very beginning of Kopiolani Boulevard. This is a map from 1922 before Kopiolani Boulevard had even been constructed and as you look at the map in the upper left hand corner or the upper left part you'll see a dotted line that says proposed boulevard. That is where Kopiolani Boulevard was going to be built and when this road project was first announced there was some discussion about potentially naming it Missionary Way or Missionary Boulevard partly because it had just come at the centennial of the arrival of the missionaries in 1920. Fortunately, more sane people thought about that and thought it would be better to call it Kopiolani Boulevard which is named for the wife of King Kalakawa who was Queen Kopiolani. So next picture, a lot of where Kopiolani Boulevard was built looked like this. It was completely undeveloped and a lot of Kulululu at that time was wetland, marshland before it had been filled, before it was going to be filled up and turned into dry land. So what we're looking at here is a line of palm trees which literally was cut through by Kopiolani Boulevard when it was constructed. This picture being taken at about 1910. Next picture and here is the very start of construction of Kopiolani Boulevard 90 years ago in February of 1929. This is the very beginning looking at King Street. If you look in the background you can see and maybe I can point to it the up there, the up there, the Mission Memorial Building. That's the building which is on Kopiolani Boulevard or King Street which is a red brick building with white pillars in front of it and it's still standing today. Well, this was the first section starting at King Street and going to the next picture. Here's where it ended. It ended at Ward Avenue and so Ward Avenue in this photograph is in the foreground. You can see there are some buildings there but most of those were the backs of buildings. They were not fronting onto a street because there hadn't been a street here before this. So this first section of Kopiolani Boulevard, next photo, was the part that got developed first. And so by the late 1930s when these two pictures were taken, this stretch between King Street and Ward Avenue had as you can see been fairly substantially developed. There are still some empty lots there but it does look like a bustling city and it looks like an urban area and that's just that part however because if we go to the next picture, we'll see that the next section of Kopiolani Boulevard which opened in 1931 from Ward Avenue down to Sheridan Street remained undeveloped for quite a while. So this again is the late 1930s and as you can see, Sheridan Street is in the lower left corner of this picture. There's not a lot there yet and just some small buildings have been constructed. It's difficult to imagine Kopiolani Boulevard ever looking like this. Next picture, well, that particular section from Pensacola Street to Iqoi Street was the site of some very early development in the 1930s and this is the Mauka side of Kopiolani Boulevard at that time. Now you'll notice that the street is still very skinny, it doesn't have sidewalks, it doesn't have curbs, it's still just a very sort of crudely built thing and we've got these little buildings however. Now some of these buildings still with us, we're going to find out about that a bit later but most of this is long gone. Next picture. So the upper picture shows you what has been identified as one of the very first buildings on this stretch of Kopiolani, the first substantial building. This picture is from 1937 and if you look at the picture below, this is that same corner in 1946. So nine years later there had been quite a bit of development and if you look at the building that's fronting the street it says Carl H. Derson, that's the name of the developer of the building. That metal, those metal letters are still on the building in the lower photograph so you can see what's grown around it and just in case you wonder what it looks like today. Next picture. This is what that corner looks like today and remember this because I'm going to be talking about the future of Kopiolani Boulevard and the future of Kopiolani Boulevard is going to look more and more like this. Next picture. So in 1940 the previously skinny two-lane Kopiolani Boulevard was widened to its present width and curbs were installed and lanes were painted and it began to look like what it looks like today. So these two pictures show you what that process looked like. The picture at the bottom is looking from the intersection of Kamaka Street and directly across the street from where we are here is the McKinley High School football field so that can place you as to where you are. The upper picture also 1940 about where the Sheridan Street intersection is. Next photograph. Now same area, Sheridan Street, looking towards Diamond Head in 1946. It is almost impossible to imagine that the center of Honolulu once looked like this but in fact it did. There was a straight shot view all the way over to Diamond Head because there were no buildings in the way. Something that's present in this picture which is familiar to us today as you can clearly see are the monkey pod trees lining Kopiolani Boulevard and in our next photograph this is what they look like pretty much even today even though this picture is from the 1990s this is one of our major impressions of this big street. We are fortunate that people had the foresight to plant these trees as long ago as they did for them to be in place because they make a huge difference as to your perceptions and your experience of driving down the street. Many times you are completely shaded. This is very good for our existences to have trees taking up solar energy and keeping us cooler. Next picture. Now when Kopiolani Boulevard began to be developed particularly after World War II there was still a lot of open space. So in that open space it was easy to accommodate lots of parked cars. So a lot of car related businesses grew up along Kopiolani including many used car dealerships. These two pictures you see a gas station and at the lower part a very familiar sight in those days lots of parked cars with light bulbs above them at night to attract people to make them come in and get a used car bargain. Next picture. But by the 1960s a lot of small buildings had begun to be built along Kopiolani. So it began to be more and more congested and more urbanized as you can see in this photograph early 1960s from the Alamoana building that's off of the Alamoana building. And in the next picture here's an example next picture there we go here's an example of those small buildings that I was talking about. Little two or three-story walk-up buildings without elevators usually for offices and that's what you see in the top picture. But the lower picture you see the Kopiolani in which is a small three-story walk-up apartment building. And much of Kopiolani Boulevard is still residential today if you continue on towards Diamond Head from McCully Street. And in the next photograph you'll see the type of thing that began to be built. This is from an ad a newspaper ad from 1941 for this two-story home which you could have had for $9,000 if you had $9,000 in those days. This building is still standing so you can see that some of these small residences amazingly are still there. Next picture. Okay some of the buildings which used to be on Kopiolani which are no longer there here is one of them. This is the Kodak Hawaii building built in the late 1930s. And it during World War II was a major asset for the military here because it did a tremendous amount of photo processing for the U.S. military from pictures that have been taken in lots of different places in the Pacific got sent back to here to Honolulu to be processed. Well Kodak Corporation is almost not existing anymore. It doesn't make film much to speak of. We don't use film or cameras very much anymore. So the Kodak building has been gone for a great many years but this used to be at Kamakae Street and Kopiolani. Next picture. And another building which was quite distinctive and I think very elegant and very typical mid-century was this Bishop National Bank building which was just Maoka of Alamoana Center. And it has this beautiful breeze block facade and then kind of this floating open area underneath. The Bishop National Bank became the first national bank and then it became the first Hawaiian bank and they moved out of this building which was built in the late 50s to across the street to their present building from 1977. And of course this has been demolished and a high rise is in the place of this. Next photo. Well amazingly enough as I said there are some old buildings still left and this is one of the more amazing ones I think. In the upper picture you see a photograph of 1938 of this little tiny building on the corner of Peekoy Street in Kopiolani Boulevard that has a giant milk bottle on top of it that says 14 cents. That was the 14 cent milk company that sold bottles of milk for 14 cents. Well amazingly enough that little building is still standing today. That little platform for the built bottle is still there. You can see it in the lower photograph. In the 50s and 60s on top of this little platform instead of a giant milk bottle was a red piano. That's what I remember. Why? We don't know. And again if you were wondering what happened and what it looks like today let's go to the next picture. And there's where the milk bottle was right in the foreground but in the background is the future of this part of Honolulu. Next photograph. Okay one building which is still standing is this one. The Boycent Paint Company built in the late 1940s. In spite of its name it did not just sell paint. It also sold home furnishings and other home goods. And it has this distinctive red Arizona flagstone structure exterior part of the structure. It's got this pylon that sticks up that used to have the name of the building on it. It was an elegant little building. It's looking not so elegant anymore as you can see because as with everything else lots of other uses have come into play and it's not, it's been somewhat seedy in recent years parts of it. Next picture we've got another building that is still standing that again has red Arizona flagstone as its base. This is the Kenrock building. It's actually three separate buildings that were built over a period of about 10 or 12 years. And it's again I think a really beautiful little complex of buildings, low rise, a nice little feeling to it. I think it's the architecture is very beautiful. Unfortunately it has been announced as the site of a new high rise. So how much longer we're going to be able to see the Kenrock building? I don't know. Next picture. Okay. One of the first substantial building constructed on Kapilani Boulevard was this one. This is the Hawaiian Life building designed by Osipov and constructed in 1951. And it's a small building in the upper picture. It's not the, not the high rise next to it. That's the Lurako, Luraku Tower from 1990. But the Hawaiian Life building is a step up from what we've seen because it's got an elevator. It has four floors, five floors with an elevator. You no longer have to walk up. And this is a commercial building with offices as well as retail space on the ground floor. Next picture just two buildings away from that is this one. This is the Seaboard Finance building again later in the 1950s. But similar architecture, similar mid-century style. And again it's a bigger step up from what we've seen because again it's got an elevator and it is a bigger modern, more substantial building. And at the time these looked really big because there was nothing big around them. Next picture. One of the most beautiful buildings that's on Kapilani Boulevard is this one. This is the advertiser, Honolulu Advertiser building, which was the, Honolulu Advertiser was the morning newspaper here in Honolulu. Built in 1930, this is, it is still standing today. Although it is hemmed in by very large high rises. And next picture, the beauty of this building is what's on the inside. The lobby, tiled floors and these painted frescoes on the wall. The center of the building used to have a glass roofed atrium or courtyard, which plants were growing in. And then around that was just open. So you felt like you were almost outside. That courtyard wasn't open like this anymore. Certainly by the 1960s it got filled in and was used as an art gallery. We're very fortunate that this building is still standing because with economic pressures as they are, we're going to lose a lot more buildings along Kapilani. But this one remains. Next picture. At the intersection of Kalakawa Avenue and Kapilani Boulevard, we've seen a succession of very high profile restaurants. And the first one was this one, which is the Kaukau Corner Drive-In. It was built in 1936, but the building you see in this picture is a bigger one, which was built in 1941. Following the style of drive-in restaurants, very popular in Southern California at the time with a rounded facade or curved frontage at which cars parked for car hop service. Or you could go inside and dine at a counter or at some tables. Next picture. This particular lot has seen a succession of restaurants. First, as you see in the upper corner, the Kaukau Corner, which I just mentioned. Then that was replaced by the 24-hour coffee shop. So what we see here is three types of restaurants that were popular in the United States in succession. So the drive-in restaurant, and as those began to decline in interest, replaced by the 24-hour coffee shop, which you see as Kokos in the picture on the right. And then finally in 1986, Kokos was demolished for the Hard Rock Cafe, which is the next type of popular American restaurant. The chain theme restaurant. Different, very different attitude though. When they built the Hard Rock, they closed off the street. They turned away from the street. They didn't have parking in front of the building. The building turned its back onto the street, which is very different. Now, the Hard Rock Cafe has moved out of this building, but it's still standing today. And we'll see how long it lasts. Next picture. The Hard Rock Cafe, I mean, the corner of those restaurants where the corner was, was not the only prominent location along Kopiolani. Because Kopiolani Boulevard was also the site of the first drive-in movie theater in the Hawaiian Islands, and it was just called The Drive-In, because there weren't any other ones when it opened in 1949. It occupied a really big piece of land, which subsequently all got developed, and it's no longer there. There's no hint of it. But as you can see, it was a really substantial building, and that the structure where the screen was located was really quite big, with a big fan-shaped parking lot looking at that for cars to park. Next picture. Alamoana Shopping Center is actually not located really directly on Kopiolani Boulevard, but it's certainly part of that entire ambience of this part of town. And Alamoana opened in 1959, was pretty much doubled in size by 1966, and since this photograph was taken, of course, a great deal more has been added onto that site. Alamoana, however, only faces onto Kopiolani Boulevard in one small section, and in the next picture, this is that section on Kopiolani, which, of course, is where the Alamoana building was built. And in this picture, from 1961, you can see this very distinctive breeze block section upon which the high-rise sits, looking onto the street. Next photo. Something else that's very distinctive along Kopiolani Boulevard and is very much part of our lives is the Blaisdell Center. This was developed on what had been a private home owned by the Ward family, which was called Old Plantation, and it was surrounded by trees and big ponds. That's what you see in that color photograph. In 1958, the city and county of Honolulu bought the property, and eventually, in the early 60s, developed it into the Blaisdell Center, as you can see in the lower photograph, which, by the way, is about to probably be extensively redeveloped as many things are. Next photograph. And this is what it looked like from the corner of Ward Avenue and Kopiolani Boulevard, right as the Ward estate or Old Plantation home was being bulldozed, and the development of the Blaisdell Center was getting started, and versus what you see today when you were at that intersection with the Blaisdell Arena, very prominently in your view. Next picture. Now, another site, which originally wasn't very exciting looking, was the piece of property between Kalakawa Avenue, Kopiolani Boulevard, and Atkinson Drive, and that was occupied for a very long time by a car dealership, Aloha Motors, which in the 1960s advertised that it was the biggest Chevrolet dealership in the world or the country. Well, it was a really big deal, and here are two pictures of it. There had been other businesses on the grounds which gradually got superseded by Aloha Motors pretty much taking over everything. Well, following that, next picture, for many years, it was a great deal of debate about building a convention center. Lots of discussion, where should it go, where can it go, where is it appropriate for it, et cetera. Well, eventually the Aloha Motors site was selected, and it was demolished. It was cleared of all buildings, and then it sat for many years, as you can see in the upper picture, before finally the convention center that we know today opened in 2001. So that is another very prominent landmark on Kapiolani Boulevard. Next picture. What we began to see in the 1970s, in particular, was the increasing construction of bigger buildings. The first high-rise, true high-rise on Kapiolani Boulevard had been the Ala Moana building, opened in 1961. This building, which is between Pensacola Street and Pequoy Street, opened in about 1976. And this is the direction that Kapiolani started to go in at that time period. Next photograph. So one of those earlier high-rises from about 1970 is this one. This is the Pan Am building. And it's in a style which I like to call blonde brutalism, meaning it's brutalism in a concrete form, but it's not gray. It's blonde because it uses sand or coral as one of its aggregate, one of the pieces of the elements that goes into its aggregate to make it look like this. Next picture. Now, here's what I'm talking about. Upper picture, 1938, lower picture today. Kapiolani Boulevard follows a very distinctive and very typical urban development plot process, let's say. It starts out with open land. Small buildings begin to be built, which are only one or two stories. In the open land, you also see a lot of car usage. Gradually, those buildings began to be replaced by smaller buildings, like three stories, four stories, five stories. And then finally, you start to see, as Hornelulu becomes increasingly congested and built up, high-rises. This is what's going to be happening along this stretch of Kapiolani Boulevard. And let's go to our last picture. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what I'm saying, is what we can look forward to or just anticipate has happened, because Kapiolani Boulevard is going to be the site of the terminus of the Hornelulu rail system at Alamoana Center. And along, what's going to happen is that around the stations for our train is going to see increasing development, because people are going to want to live right near where they can walk to the train and use that for transportation, where they don't have to use a vehicle, they don't have to own a car, maybe so much. So, the high-rise that you see under construction in this picture is one of many, which we can anticipate along Keiomoku Street, Maoka of Kapiolani Boulevard, and along Kapiolani itself. There already are lots, which are empty, which are slated for development. There has been publicity about plan development and other parcels along Kapiolani. And I anticipate we're going to see a great deal more of what you see in this picture here. So, the Kapiolani Boulevard we know today may change very dramatically in the near future over not too many years. And for those of us interested in architectural preservation and history, this is something we're going to be having to be paying attention to and documenting as best we can to remember what it used to look like. And that brings us to the end of our presentation today. And I thank you all very much for being here. The Dokomomo Hawaii programs will be continuing for some months to come. We'll be alternating with the human-humane architecture programs. And so you'll be seeing more from this time onwards about architecture from this time period. We'll be talking more about some of the things that maybe have been lost, some of the things that we hope to show you that you might not be aware of from this time period, but which are really interesting and really fun to know about. Interesting to see. And once you see them, once they've been introduced to you and once you know about them, you can start seeing them in your daily life. You can start seeing these elements in where you live, where you work, and being aware that architecture of this time period is not only interesting, but it's worthy of preservation, shouldn't be overlooked, and we should be aware of what we're losing as our city changes and as our city grows. So, thank you for joining us. I'm DeSoto Brown for Dokomomo Hawaii here on ThinkTech and I will see you again next time we're on TV. Till then, Allah hafiz.