Eileen Ching of Dowsett Highlands is fascinated by the remains of what appear to be old lamp posts on the ends of the little Kimo Drive bridge over Nuuanu Stream. "It would be very nice to have them working again, if it were possible!" she asks. High cost dims chance
of fixing bridge lamps
Kimo Drive is a public thoroughfare and falls under the city's jurisdiction.
"Unfortunately," sighs Lowell Angell of the Historic Preservation Department at the University of Hawaii, "the city isn't real interested in maintaining the original electrical work on these old bridges. Too expensive. Lamps at the corner of these bridges are part of their overall design."
Architect Barbara Shideler of Spencer Mason Architects agrees. She helps maintain an inventory of historic bridges in Hawaii for the state Department of Transportation -- more than 500 pre-1940 bridges remain -- and says the lamps are an integral design feature.
But the Kimo Drive bridge itself is fascinating. While it's not listed as one of Hawaii's historic bridges, nor is it a registered landmark, and neither the state Historic Preservation Division or the Historic Hawaii Foundation have much of anything on it, DOT records list it as being constructed in 1900, said Shideler.
"Amazing," she said. "That means it might be the oldest extant cast-concrete bridge in the state -- one of the first cast-concrete structures here of any kind and that makes it a historic bridge."
But according to Tom Lalakea, an expert in Nuuanu history, this bridge and one at Pelekane Drive were most likely constructed in 1926 when Dowsett Highlands was developed.
Budget restraints, said city information officer Carol Costa, make it unlikely the lamps will ever be lit again on Kimo Drive bridge.
Burl Burlingame, Star-Bulletin
