Posted on: Friday, February 14, 2003
HAWAIIAN STYLE
Island figures beat presidents in local place names
While the rest of the nation pauses Monday to honor a president or two, Hawai'i seems to have given pretty short shrift to our chief executives.
Oh sure, there is that Punchbowl lane named after politician Bush — not George Sr. or George W. but John E. Bush, part-Hawaiian publisher of Ka Leo o Ka Lahui and governor of Kaua'i in 1877.
And, it's not President Woodrow, but rather Mayor Johnny who is honored locally by things named Wilson: an elementary school, a street, a place, a road, a land tract — even a tunnel.
Gartley Place in Nu'uanu is as close as we come to a (James A.) Garfield Place. There's a Hays Circle, but no (Rutherford B.) Hayes anything. We do have a Monroe Road, a James Madison Court and Coolidge and McKinley streets.
There's a Union Street Mall, but no Ulysses S. Grant anything; a Jackson, but no Jefferson Place, a Harris, but no Harrison; a Taylor, but no Tyler; a Pierce, but no Polk.
Abraham Lincoln got a dorm, Lincoln Hall, near the University of Hawai'i's Korean Studies Building and Lincoln Elementary up 'Auwai-olimu way — but there's disagreement as to whether the old "special education" school, Linekona, by Thomas Square, now part of the Honolulu Academy of Arts, is named for our 16th president.
And, Linakola (another "Hawaiianization" of Lincoln) Street in Wai'anae is more likely named after a less successful politician, Lincoln McCandless, a nine-time losing candidate for U.S. Congress. (He finally won in 1932).
Ford Island and Ford Island Way are named for a Honolulu doctor, not Gerald Ford — and Jimmy probably wasn't behind Carter Drive. Johnson Lane in 'A'ala wasn't named for Lyndon Baines or Andrew — but a former Love's Bakery manager.
What about Franklin Avenue or Delano Street? And Roosevelt Avenue and Roosevelt Street certainly have that presidential ring. The origins of many place names, experts say, are often lost over time.
But there are some place names that are right on the presidential kinipopo: Harding Avenue was built during Warren Harding's administration — and named for him.
George Washington never slept there — but a queen and several Hawai'i governors have, in Washington Place, the governor's mansion, named after our first president. Then there's Washington Intermediate School. He never slept there, either.
George Hall on the UH-Manoa campus does honor George, of course, but William H. George, a College of Arts and Science dean in the early 1930s.
And, as if to add injury to insult, what's commonly called the George Washington Stone up Sunset Beach way is really named Kahikilani, for a surfer whose wife gave him lehua lei every day. Discovering him with some 'ilima lei after surfing one day, so the story goes, the wife called on her family 'aumakua, and had da buggah turned to stone. Our first president had nothing to do with it.
Schofield Barracks comes through with some presidential airs, what with George Washington, John Adams and James Madison courts.
The president who saw the Islands into territorial status is honored with McKinley High School. Although statehood didn't give us a similar Eisenhower High, we had Eisenhower Road at Barbers Point Naval Air Station. And, the combined 51.2 miles of H-1, H-2, and H-3 roadways comprise the Dwight D. Eisenhower System of Interstate and Defense Highways.
There is a John F. Kennedy Street, and Kennedy Theatre at UH. Jefferson Hall was named for a president, but Johnson Hall wasn't. Lincoln Hall was. Confused yet?
Of course there is (Teddy) Roosevelt High in Makiki.
There's nothing to honor our more recent presidents, but with the current president often popularly referred to as "Dubya," I wonder about the swank little boutique hotel down Diamond Head way: W Honolulu.
Maybe it has a presidential suite.
