As efforts continue to address conditions in Honolulu's Chinatown, a look back to the 1980s shows there has been a definite improvement. For perspective, and a sense of what people find so special about Chinatown, Hawaiʻi Public Radio walked the district with a noted architect.
Architect Glenn Mason specializes in historic preservation. He opened his first office in Chinatown in 1982.
"When we moved there, it was — I'm not sure we said it's a nadir — but it was pretty low down. About a year after we moved into Chinatown, the last restaurant that was open in all of downtown Honolulu closed. And for one year, there was not a single restaurant open in Chinatown or downtown at night," Mason said.
We were walking ʻEwa on Merchant street, toward Nuʻuanu Avenue.
"When you get to where Murphy's is, that's in Chinatown. So now we just walked into Chinatown," he said. "Again, when we moved into Chinatown, there were probably six porno movie theaters or porno arcades. You walk around now and you don't see any of that, which is great."
"There was a terrible fire in 1886. And then another one in 1900. As a result, many of the buildings that were built after 1900 were built with brick or stone. Most of the buildings that we're looking at in Chinatown date from that time period."
"We're walking along here under a canopy. There are blocks in Chinatown, you can walk around the entire block when it's pouring rain and not get wet. This is a characteristic of Chinatown."
That makes it nice to walk up the street, not in the sun.
"Not in the sun. And when it's raining, we're protected. And you look around. That's a characteristic of Chinatown, right. But again, it's everything. It's lava rock curbstones. And, I can see the mountains looking up Nuʻuanu Avenue, that's important. And that's so easily lost."
What is with this bizarre Chinatown architecture, where you go inside the building, you walk up two floors, toward the back, and then you come out to a veranda, over a garden? What kind of architecture is this one?
"Look, remember, all of these buildings were designed to be naturally ventilated. They couldn't be big blocks of buildings. And so they're all relatively thin. And if you have a deep lot, you're not going to build the building the full depth of the lot, because then you have no air, right? And so when you look at a building, like there in the Mendonca block that has a nice courtyard, look around, that's a characteristic of Chinatown."
"But what tells the story of Chinatown is the aggregate. It's the spaces between buildings as well."
"By and large, what's happened is, the building owners in Chinatown have really fixed up their properties. I mean, you go into Brick Fire Tavern and all these places that we're looking at here. Encore, Yakitori Hachibei, Fete. Yeah, they're pretty nice buildings. I mean, the owners have done a really nice job fixing up these buildings on the inside. And so I'm actually very optimistic."
Listen below to the extended tour of Honolulu's historic Chinatown with architect Glenn Mason. It aired on The Aloha Friday Conversation on Jan. 28, 2022. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
