RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM Rhoda and Ken Martyn stood in front of the foundation of the new Waialua Bandstand at the corner of Goodale Avenue and Kealohanui Street on Oct. 5.

Bandstand sparks
hope for renewal

Waialua residents hope
the landmark's rebirth draws
the community together

---

By Leila Fujimori
lfujimori@starbulletin.com

In Waialua's heyday, the bandstand was at the center of activity for the busy sugar mill community.

The Waialua bandstand means peanuts, soda pop and 10-cent hot dogs at band concerts and boxing matches during the 1920s and 1930s, says 88-year-old George Tanabe.

"In the old Waialua Park, we had all the community events there when Waialua Plantation was really big," Tanabe said.

Waialua and Oahu residents would be drawn to the bandstand for social events, musical performances, even boxing matches. In later years, it was where union members convened.

The old wooden structure, ravaged by termites and time, is gone, but a new bandstand is emerging in its place.

COURTESY PHOTO In the 1920s and 1930s, the Waialua Bandstand attracted crowds with its boxing matches, social events and music performances.

With it, Waialua residents hope to see an economic rebirth of the once-bustling plantation town and to revive a sense of community.

The city broke ground Aug. 31 for the project, located next to the old Waialua Sugar Mill and across from the Waialua Public Library.

Waialua resident Ken Martyn said the idea was spawned in 1997 out of the Waialua Public Library's annual "Heritage Days," an event where old-timers would gather and tell stories of the plantation days.

At those events, Waialua's ethnic communities of Portuguese, Filipinos, Japanese, Caucasians and Hawaiians come together.

The old bandstand was a central gathering place for members of different plantation camps to visit and perform dances. Residents hope for the same kind of social interchange with the new bandstand.

The residents envision weekend concerts and other events. "We'd make it so families could bring supper and get a better chance to mix," he said.

The project would also hopefully help boost Waialua's economy and give people reason once again to visit Waialua, Martyn said.

The community has been working on the city's vision project to acquire the original site, zoned as preservation for a city park and to rebuild the bandstand since 1999.

Gregory Hee, city project coordinator, said the $121,050 to purchase the 1.2-acre parcel from Dole Foods was obtained in 2000. The bandstand's design and construction was funded by the city in 2001 for $296,000, and an additional $240,000 was appropriated in the 2003 budget for landscaping, walkways, a few parking stalls, lighting and hula berms.

The bandstand is scheduled for completion next February, but Martyn foresees the whole project will be completed by next summer.

The six-sided bandstand will sport a corrugated metal roof to give it a sugar plantation look, a cupola and concrete posts and floor.

"The community has been telling (the city) from the beginning to keep it simple. We don't want it fancy," Martyn said.

The original was multi-sided, and the rebuilt one was four-sided, he said.

"I recall quite vividly the old bandstand," said Waialua resident Jacob Ng. "It was used every Christmas as sort of a stage and the focal point for Christmas plays sponsored by the Waialua Sugar Mill."

Ng also remembers the boxing matches: "Waialua had some outstanding boxers," he said.

He recalls the Royal Hawaiian Band performing there, and music festivities such as the May Day program.

"It was a really cute little bandstand," said professional singer Patsy Gibson, who performed Hawaiian songs in the mid-1950s in an outdoor concert there. "I think (the new bandstand) will do a lot for Waialua."

"It was a big draw for people from town to buy sugar bags at Fujioka Store to make their kids' clothes," Gibson recalls. "Then they'd hear the music playing and they'd have a picnic and sit down."

Among those in the audience, Gibson said, were many Honolulu residents who owned country homes in Waialua in those days.

"It was kind of a country retreat for a lot of people," she said.

Entertainer Jimmy Borges, who used to play at the bandstand as a kid while visiting his Waialua cousins, said: "I would pretend I was a boxer fighting. Sometimes we used to get into the bandstand and use that as our boxing ring."

As for performing there one day, "That would really be wonderful," he said.