|
TheBuzz Erika Engle |
Baubles, beads and
bananas in bunches
bring buyers
to Fort StreetEfforts to clean up and revitalize Fort Street Mall now include open markets three days a week, one of them, complete with free live music.
Free for Tuesday's noontime audiences, but not for members of the Fort Street Mall Business Improvement District, which is looking back on its first year of accomplishments.
Fort Street Mall has long been a Mecca of one stripe or another and the dingier stripes are what the group is trying to scrub out.
It has purchased a "Green Machine" sweeper and has personnel using a power scrubber regularly to clean up the physical dirt, but for years the area has had a bad reputation that takes longer to wash clean.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Lupe J. Steffany, left, and Courtney Orr set up shop at a new craft and produce market on Fort Street Mall. Steffany is owner of Lupe's South Pacific Collection.
"We want to reduce, or have the old stigma that has been attached to the mall for the past 10 or 15 years melt, just disappear," said Chris Nakashima-Heise, area BID president.
The Fort Street Mall BID has hired security guards who work two-at-a-time around the clock. "24 hours a day, to ensure safety, somebody's around."
Members of the Fort Street Mall BID include 30 area property owners. The group is self-funded.
"We tax ourselves," Nakashima-Heise said.
The open market operates from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays and Fridays at Wilcox Park fronting Macy's and on Wednesdays during the same hours at Pauahi and Fort streets.
"We run the marketplace, really, at a loss.
"The only fees that we receive for the open markets (from the vendors) are to keep the market running, for the entertainment. What ever we make goes right back into that, to keep it alive and vibrant," she said.
Life and vibrancy springs forth from the vendors' tents.
At one of the Wednesday craft fair tables, any available sunshine glints off earrings and necklaces sold by Sandra Watanabe's SanPaper Creations.
CRAIG T. KOJIMA / CKOJIMA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Lammay Khamsouk of Nita's Flower Market gathers flowers at the Downtown Business Improvement District produce market on Fort Street Mall.
The jewelry is made with Venetian glass and Swarovski crystal as well as semi-precious stones, ceramic and other types of beads, some imported from Europe.
A psych major in college, "I'm now known as the $5 earring lady," she laughed. Necklace prices start at $5 and go up to $27.
Lupe Steffany draws upon the creativity and hard work of family members, including nieces and nephews, for the Polynesian wares sold by Lupe's South Pacific Collection.
She hand paints much of her merchandise, including hau tree ornaments festooned with hibiscus fiber for hanging from a Christmas tree. Other pieces, such as an unusual necklace made from banana bark, are polished and glossy, leaving the grain luminescent like koa. Purses, belts and household items -- like large "rubber slipper" refrigerator magnets made from wood -- are included in the collection.
Wood crafter Gordon Young, a member of the Handcrafters' and Artisans' Alliance, sells his wooden toys, seed leis and shell belts his sister makes, as well as other merchandise, at Fort Street Mall and other locations.
Orchids from common to exotic are offered by Marty O'Day of Marty's Orchids. Arranged baskets are popular office gifts and he's at-the-ready with instruction on care for the plants.
Anthurium growers and other vendors round out the Wednesday market, where the only produce vendor is Daisy Kamiya, vendor coordinator.
Tuesdays and Fridays feature primarily produce people who come from all over the island.
At Kamiya's large stand on Wednesday, she hand selected papayas for a customer.
"These are at different stages of ripeness," she told him, advising him to put them in the refrigerator.
The Big Island papayas were selling for 59 cents a pound, while supermarket-sized trays of mushrooms were going for $1.75.
The customer mix is broad, from office workers to students from Hawaii Pacific University to residents of nearby high-rises.
Fort Street Mall's regular merchants "are fine with the open market," Nakashima-Heise said.
"It's helped them because it brings people out into the mall."
And through their doors?
"I hope so," she said, "though we don't have any real statistics.
"The marketplace has created more positive energy and the whole environment, they're just happy about that," she said.
"We want people to be pleasantly surprised when they come here and go 'oh wow, this is really nice.' That's the experience we want them to come away with," said Nakashima-Heise.
That, and maybe a couple papayas to eat and new baubles to wear.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin. Call 529-4302, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210, Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached at: eengle@starbulletin.com
