Jeffrey Young asked, “Can you find out where ‘Chinese Hollywood’ is and how it got its nickname?
“I believe the area may have had this nickname due to the many wealthy Chinese businessmen who had homes in this area from the 1890s through the 1930s.”
It’s an interesting question. Several Oahu neighborhoods that I know of had nicknames bestowed on them, in addition to their legal appellations. I thought I’d explore the topic this week. There are also some interesting tangents I uncovered along the way, so buckle up.
Chinese Hollywood
I began in the newspaper archives. In 1982 the Honolulu Star-Bulletin ran a story about the Bingham Tract School’s 50th anniversary. It began in 1932 with 12 students.
“In 1932, that part of town was called ‘Chinese Hollywood’ because of the number of upwardly mobile Chinese living in the single- family houses in the area,” the article said.
Bingham Tract opened in 1921, with homes in the Beretania and McCully streets area selling for $27,000 to $31,000 (in 2023 dollars).
The Bingham Tract is roughly the area between the H-1 freeway and Beretania Street. It’s bordered on the east by Moiliili and west by Makiki. It is mauka of the Pawaa and McCully districts.
The area is named for missionary Rev. Hiram Bingham, pastor of Kawaiaha‘o Church and co-founder of Punahou School.
The Bingham Tract School began in the Griffiths Street home of Priscilla Charman Akina (inset), who decided to open a school for prekindergartners and kindergartners. Attendance soared during her 34 years as principal.
Akina was a descendent of Kauai alii. She died in 1966, and her daughter, Arline, took over and moved the school to a new facility on Beretania Street. The Bingham Tract School closed in 1990, and teachers who wanted to stay together founded the Soto Academy on Nuuanu Avenue.
Priscilla’s eldest son, Dr. Charman J. Akina, was very well known and thought of. He helped build the Waimanalo Health Center and volunteered with many local nonprofits.
Living in Bingham Tract
Former U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye lived at 2332 Coyne St. in Bingham Tract. On Dec. 7, 1941, the McKinley High School senior biked from there to a Red Cross station where he volunteered before enlisting in the Army.
Arnold Lum said he and his wife now live in Medford, Ore. “I was born at Kapiolani Hospital and brought home to 2311 Bingham in 1946.
“Bingham Tract was, like every place in Hawaii, a pretty innocent place. We didn’t lock the doors until 1955, when we started experiencing break-ins in the neighborhood.
“The Akina family lived on Griffiths Street. They owned whippets, which look like small Greyhound dogs. Those critters were fast as anything. They would run down the driveway and bark at us small kids.
“Yes, Bingham Tract was known as ‘Chinese Hollywood.’ I was trimming the hedge one Saturday morning when a car pulled up to the curb. A woman got out. I turned and greeted her.
“She said, ‘I just wanted to ask if you are Pake’” — a Hawaiian term for Chinese.
“I am Pake/Hawaiian,” Lum told her.
“I knew there must be Pakes still living here,” she replied.
Mandarin Heights
University sociologist Andrew Lind gave Honolulu tours in the mid-1970s through the YWCA. Reporter Pierre Bowman went on one of them.
Lind pointed out the modest houses in Bingham Tract. “This newly established tract of houses made it possible for a number of families to enjoy the common conveniences denied them in Chinatown, as well as status in the wider community. Because of the larger concentration from this one ethnic group, the area soon came to be known as ‘Chinese Hollywood.’
“Within another decade, Bingham Tract lost its predominantly Chinese character, as members of other ethnic groups purchased the homes vacated by the original residents.
“A further step in the same general direction occurred some years later at the close of World War II when some very desirable residential lands on the slopes of Tantalus were thrown open to competitive bidding.
“Because of their access to ready cash, the majority of the successful bidders were persons of Chinese ancestry, with the result that the area was soon facetiously labeled ‘Mandarin Heights.’
“‘Mandarin Heights,’ like ‘Chinese Hollywood,’ gradually became more cosmopolitan in ethnic composition, similar to most neighborhoods in the urban centers of Hawaii.”
Lind also mentioned that Central Union Church was once nicknamed the “Sugar Church” because so many members used to be wealthy stockholders in sugar plantations.
Swillauea
“Ala Moana Center,” Lind said, “was built on marsh land which the Dillingham Corp. was canny enough to fill in with coral dredged from a commercial project to create the Ala Wai Boat Harbor. The city used some of the marsh areas as refuse dumps.
“In the old days, the newspapers used to call it ‘Swillauea,’ a takeoff on Kilauea crater on the Big Island because of the smoke and smelly fumes.” Swill is waste food mixed with water and fed to animals.
I had never head of that and decided to look into it.
Arthur W. Emerson, in a 1930 letter to The Honolulu Advertiser, spoke out against the city’s new incinerator in the Kewalo-Kakaako area, where the Children’s Discovery Center is today.
“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t find another place to burn the city’s rubbish except in the city’s front yard,” he moaned.
He suggested the incinerator and garbage dump be called Swillauea. It will “stand as a monument to despair, to penny-wise pound foolishness, and to ugliness.”
Emerson jokingly suggested it be prettied up and turned into a tourist destination. “A conventional model of a volcanic cone or a miniature Mauna Loa itself could be erected.
“Supplied by the obviously abundant city refuse, it could continually smoke by day and flame by night.”
Retailers could sell little enameled souvenir models of this new Volcano of Swillauea all over town.
“The Tourist Bureau could establish an associate membership in the ‘Hut O Pele’ for the many tourists who would inevitably make the pilgrimage past Swillauea.”
Despite the “swilliness,” the city continued using the incinerator, and in 1946 added a second one next to the old one. They could burn 200 tons of refuse daily, the city said, compared with just 75 tons at the old incinerator.
The city began phasing out the incinerators in the 1970s because the air pollution surpassed state air quality standards. Now Oahu’s garbage goes to HPOWER, which burns 2,000 tons of refuse per day and generates 10% of Oahu’s electricity.
Oahu’s Nob Hill
A few other neighborhoods have been given nicknames by the public. Former missionaries Gerritt and Laura Judd built a home on what became Judd Street in Nuuanu 150 years ago. Many others followed suit, and soon the area was given the nickname “Hawaii’s Nob Hill,” referring to the neighborhood in San Francisco where some of the finest homes could be found.
Hell’s Half Acre
A tenement housing area bordered by Aala Park, Liliha, Kukui and River streets was called “Hell’s Half Acre” before it was developed into Kukui Gardens in the 1960s. Many of the structures lacked indoor plumbing and cooking facilities, but rent was often under $10 a month.
Tin Can Alley
Kamanuwai Lane, from Beretania Street to Vineyard Boulevard, is now called Maunakea Street. But 100 years ago it was a narrow, winding road, filled with tin cans, broken bottles, rubbish and debris and was virtually impassable in wet weather.
The low-income area was nicknamed “Tin Can Alley.” It was demolished and rebuilt in the 1960s.
Dream City
Dreamer Frank Baldwin promoted this suburb of Kahului, which comprises nearly 4,000 homes and multiple commercial sites. Two-thirds of the residents worked for Alexander & Baldwin’s Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. or one of its associated firms, when it launched after World War II.
The hollow-tile homes in “Dream City” averaged 1,050 square feet in area, were located on 11,500 square feet of fee-simple land and cost homeowners only $45 to $57 a month, including interest, taxes, insurance and principal payments.
Gold Coast
The far end of Waikiki has been called the “Gold Coast” since the late 1950s. It includes the New Otani Kaimana Beach Hotel, San Souci, Colony Surf, Outrigger Canoe Club, Elks Club and Kainalu Apartments.
There are other places in Hawaii that are not neighborhoods, as I am focusing on here, but nonetheless have been given nicknames, such as Halona Beach Cove (“From Here to Eternity Beach” or “Secret Beach”) and Mokoli‘i (“Chinaman’s Hat”).
Can readers think of other neighborhoods and nicknames that were given them?
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Bob Sigall writes the Rearview Mirror column every Friday. Send your comments or suggestions to Sigall@Yahoo.com.
