PORTFOLIO
COURTESY OF "WAIKIKI"
Children learn to swim at the Natatorium in the 1930s, where teachers suspend them in the water by ropes to teach them to coordinate their arm and leg movements.
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Waikiki of yesteryear
Beauty is matched with history in this lively new photo book
Is there any spot on Earth where more raw film has been exposed than Waikiki? Thousands of inhabitants and zillions of tourists have captured moments of time on the famous beachfront -- slices of paradise, 1/60 of a second at a time, all pretty much showing the same thing, people enjoying themselves.
The new "Images of America -- Waikiki," by Kai White and Jim Kraus, delves into this fertile ground and creates a succinct history of the area told mainly in images. The book follows the standard-issue Arcadia Publishing blueprint, with lots of well-printed images and well-crafted captions that add an element of understanding to each picture. The book also goes right up to the present day, even chastising the mayor for the disastrous sewer overflow into the Ala Wai canal.
But the main focus is the past, with a canned history of Hawaiian royalty and discussions of Hawaiian history, such as the Great Mahele and the Bayonet Constitution. With the background established, it moves right into the changing use of Waikiki, from royal retreat to farming community to urban playground to tourist mecca.
The photographs are well chosen, and while there are some classic images from the State Archives, many are from private collections of Waikiki residents, primarily beachboy families.
No matter what the activity is, however, sooner or later Diamond Head looms in the background. As a landmark, it can't be beat, and it's no slouch as a photo backdrop either.
COURTESY OF "WAIKIKI"
Date palms and ironwood trees offer shade to two children enjoying the water at Kapiolani Park. The Honolulu Zoo would later be built near this site.
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COURTESY OF "WAIKIKI"
Limu was abundant on Waikiki Beach.
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COURTESY OF "WAIKIKI"
On Aug. 12, 1898, Hawaii became a territory of the United States. Three days later, American troops occupied Kapiolani Park en route to the Philippines, to quell an anti-American rebellion. But typhoid, malaria, measles and dysentery soon swept through the Army camp. Eventually, an entire regiment was sent back to New York.
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COURTESY OF "WAIKIKI"
Joe Akana, right, and his buddy John D. Kaupiko sit on the Moana Pier in 1929. Akana, born in 1907 on Ohua Lane in Waikiki, became a Waikiki beachboy. Of those days, he says, "The place to be was at the beach. Surfboard instruction, swimming, canoeing -- taking people out in the canoe. Could make as much as five dollars a day. Oh, boy, that was big money."
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