Let’s start this week’s column with a quiz.

Before 1948 the area that is now Market City Shopping Center was:

a) A parking lot.

b) A vegetable patch.

c) A roller skating rink.

d) A trolley depot.

Which shopping center opened before Market City?

a) Ala Moana

b) Windward Mall

c) International Market Place

d) Aloha Shopping Center in Waipahu

Market City is celebrating its 70th anniversary this month. Sandra Au Fong, president of Market City Shopping Center, told me that site was selected because the founders felt it was an ideal location for a new development sweeping the country: shopping centers.

“The infrastructure in the neighborhood was already in place for more growth,” Fong said. “At the time, Kaimuki was already well established as a Honolulu suburb with roads being built to connect to nearby Waialae Avenue, which had become the main thoroughfare.”

Kaimuki had been developed by the late 1890s, and acre-size lots along Waialae Avenue could be bought for about $500. But it wasn’t until the January 1900 great Chinatown fire that it became popular. Over 6,000 people needed new homes, and many found Kaimuki, then on the outskirts of Honolulu, to be attractive.

The University of Hawaii opened in Manoa in 1912, and Saint Louis School moved into Kaimuki in 1928.

The Kaimuki business district began to develop by 1930, when the dirt roads were paved and sidewalks were laid. By the late 1940s more Hawaii families owned cars and more homes were built in the area.

There was another new development sweeping the country after World War II: shopping centers.

Three families — the Fongs, Changs and Chuns — anticipated that they would come to Hawaii and pooled their life savings to purchase a 3.5-acre site for approximately $100,000 in 1946.

Led by Hiram Fong, who would later became a U.S. senator, they joined together to create Market City Ltd. Its slogan was “At the gateway to Kaimuki.”

Before the property was developed into a shopping center, it was just a vegetable patch with a large monkeypod tree on the corner of what is now Kapiolani Boulevard and Harding Avenue.

“At the time, Kaimuki was an agricultural area, with cattle grazing and even an ostrich farm,” Sandra Au Fong said. “The families saw this vegetable patch but sensed the excitement and anticipation about the changes taking place in the community, and realized the potential for the property to become a convenient site for tenants to serve the growing number of Kaimuki and Kapahulu residents.

“The families chose the name Market City because it reflected the vision of what the shopping center could become. The one-stop supermarket was a relatively new concept at the time, but the families believed that this was not merely a passing fad. It would become a new standard for consumer experiences.

“We were introducing a new kind of convenience for consumers — the first Foodland in the islands — where you could get everything you needed instead of having to visit multiple destinations for different food items.

“Prior to that time, vegetables had to be purchased at markets or from individual farmers, meat from butchers, milk from dairies, and sewing notions from dry-good stores.”

Market City was one of the first shopping centers in Honolulu in 1948. Aina Haina Shopping Center didn’t open until 1952. Waialae Shopping Center, now known as Kahala Mall, opened in November 1954, and Ala Moana Center opened five years later, in August 1959.

The only earlier shopping center I could find was Aloha Shopping Center in Waipahu, which opened in 1947. It had nine stores and 50 parking spaces.

One of Foodland’s founders was Maurice Sullivan. During World War II “Sully” enlisted in the Air Force and was stationed at Hickam Air Force Base. Placed in charge of procuring food for the officers’ mess hall, Sullivan happened into the Lanikai store run by Shoo She Pang “Mama” Lau and her daughter Joanna. They became friends.

The Laus were friends with Hiram Fong, and after the war, Mama Lau convinced him to lease her space for a supermarket. With the hard work of Mama, Sully and Joanna, and $20,000 in capital, the first store opened at Market City on May 6, 1948. At Joanna’s suggestion the store was named Foodland Super Market.

“Hiram Fong and the Sullivans became close friends and business allies,” Sandra Au Fong says. “Their relationship was based on trust. I recall that Maurice Sullivan was a very generous and humble man who preferred to stay out of the limelight. He was a man of integrity. Everything was done with a simple handshake.”

MC (short for Market City) Drive Inn was the first tenant to open in 1948. It offered steaks, chops, seafood and poultry “cooked just as you like” for 75 cents.

It looks like MC Drive Inn became Wiki Wiki Burger. It was known for its bright neon sign of a smiling, winking burger sitting on a wall with other burgers running around. W&M Burger took over Wiki Wiki Burger in 1964, and after that it became Shari’s Drive-In in the early 1970s.

Shari’s Drive-In was owned by Walter Miura, who also owned an Ala Moana Beach concession and another near the bandstand at Kapiolani Park.

Finance Factors and Hono­lulu Times were also early tenants at Market City. The center could accommodate 250 cars.

Foodland opened originally in the space that now houses several restaurants. When it opened in May 1948, plans for Market City included retail stores selling 5-cent and 10-cent items, drugs, automotive, a fish market and a furniture store.

The families envisioned several things that apparently never came to pass: A movie theater, bowling alley, roof garden, cocktail lounge and large dance auditorium were considered.

Market City did face a few challenges. It lost its largest tenant, Timber Town, which occupied 50,000 of the center’s 87,000 total square footage, in 1984. It occupied the space that Foodland now uses.

Hiram Fong tapped his lawyer son Marvin to manage the center. Marvin’s wife, Sandra Au Fong, was a successful commercial real estate agent, and together the couple renovated the center to accommodate many small tenants.

Another challenge was building the H-1 freeway.

“It’s interesting to note that the construction of the H-1 freeway just above Market City Shopping Center, in the 1960s, was both a positive and negative for all businesses in the Kaimuki area,” Fong said.

“The freeway had diverted some commuters away from Waialae Avenue, but the freeway also helped to preserve the quaint neighborhood character of Kaimuki because there was no reason to demolish existing homes or businesses to build larger malls.”

Today, Market city is home to over a dozen restaurants in addition to Foodland, Ben Franklin Crafts and Walgreens.

The shopping center and its tenants will kick off the celebration for its 70th anniversary on March 24 with entertainment, discounts, giveaways and food specials.

In case you missed them, the answers to the questions are vegetable patch and Aloha Shopping Center in Waipahu.

Bob Sigall’s “The Companies We Keep 5” book contains stories from the last three years of Rearview Mirror. “The Companies We Keep 1 and 2” are also back in print. Email Sigall at Sigall@yahoo.com.