Hey, Lou, it's church and state, not church and city. Besides, that's small potatoes. What you really need to fear is gigantic media conglomerates that throw profitable, community-minded newspapers on the scrapheap of history.
But the Wat Dat Research Department digresses (and digresses all too easily these dark days). Actually, we pretty much answered this question a couple of years ago.
In 1915, the buildings were erected by the Hawaiian Evangelical Association, descendents of missionary families. It was to be an archive, museum, educational facility and clubhouse. During World War II, the City decided these structures would be a swell addition to the municipal campus, primarily as a traffic court.
The City condemned the structures and offered the HEA a fraction of what they were worth, and things wound up in court. An independent audit determined the buildings were worth $401,660 in 1947, and ever since the City has used them for overflow collections.
The Mission Houses Museum has approached the City about using the buildings for their original use, preserving Hawaii's missionary history, but it availeth them not.
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