From River Street to Richards, those are the borders of downtown and Chinatown, and an upcoming photography exhibit showcases life and times between the two halves.
On Monday, the mayor signed a bill into law creating a downtown business improvement district, but that bill left Chinatown behind. This week The Conversation went live on the road into the heart of Chinatown to talk about its future.
The Downtown Arts Center has a show with powerful pictures of Honolulu, opening the first week of November. DAC Executive Director Sandy Pohl describes what's in store.
She is on Nuʻuanu Street at the edge of the downtown BID. But her roots are where she grew up in Chinatown. So she straddles both sides. She starts by explaining that the images in the photography exhibit speak volumes about what once was.
“It's capturing people's lives here in Chinatown, we're not glitzy here, we're just ordinary,” Pohl said. “And everybody talks about the homeless, the dirt, the grit, but they never see the little gems about Chinatown and the real people, experiences, that is captured in our show. It's an amazing show that particularly chooses different elements of people and the experiences.”
Pohl shared with HPR that she grew up in a close-knit, crowded neighborhood called Tin Can Alley, by the Beretania Follies.
“I saw this picture, I was just like skimming it, and suddenly, as I was flipping through it, I got this smell and this taste in my mouth and the human crowdedness that I all of a sudden felt just because I saw this one picture, and I thought, ‘Wow, that is amazing that a photograph can bring so much memory back, she said.’”
"That's when I realized how important photography as an art form really is. And so that's why we started this whole thing, is because I want other people to get that same experience."
Pohl also underscored the importance of art in communities.
“What I've learned over the five years that we've been here is that art has real power to change neighborhoods,” she said. "We have a lot of artwork from Nuʻuanu all the way up to Richard Street, public art that's just really wonderful, and nobody really notices that. But so that's what I see happening, is that the more attention we pay and using the power of art and community building, that we can actually rejuvenate this into not just any old town, but a sense of place, that it was just our neighborhood.”
River to Richards will conclude on Nov. 29.
This story aired on The Conversation on Oct. 24, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Hannah Kaʻiulani Coburn adapted this story for the web.
