Every Sunday, “Back in the Day” looks at an article that ran on this date in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. The items are verbatim, so don’t blame us today for yesteryear’s bad grammar

Ala Moana park apparently can be shelved as another solution to the city’s aquarium site problem which didn’t come through.

The site, suggested by William P. Alexander, University of Hawaii regent, at a regents’ meeting last week, has been termed “unfeasible” by the UH zoology department.

President Gregg M. Sinclair said the department’s report to the regents said that the waters there are too muddy and that the site is “unsuitable” for a marine biological laboratory.

“However, we are studying other areas in Waikiki for an aquarium site,” Mr. Sinclair said, and “many of us feel there is no reasonable objection to the McInerny site.”

Action on the city’s aquarium has been pending since 1949 when the legislature granted $400,000 for it. And the last legislature made $200,000 available for land in Waikiki.

But due to the inability to decide on a site, the aquarium has continued to be a paper-plan.

The UH was given the job of running the aquarium in 1919. And though it doesn’t want it now, it’s still got it.

However, “We are not an arbitrary body,” Dr. Sinclair commented.

The UH won’t force a site on the city which hasn’t been agreed on by the parties concerned, including the parks board, the city planning commission and other agencies, he promised.

“We only ask them to come to a decision,” he said.

However, Dr. Sinclair indicated that an inland site would not get the go-ahead nod from the Manoa campus officials.

“An inland site would prohibit our eventually securing an oceanarium,” he explained.