Holt Lane, aka ‘the Camp,’ named after famed family

I wrote about Holt Lane on Aug. 21. Jeffrey Wataoka grew up in this area that was called “the camp” in the 1950s, before it was engulfed by the H-1 freeway and Pali Highway.

I was surprised by the amount of emails I received on this topic, and thought I’d write a follow-up piece about Holt Lane today.

If you missed the article, Holt Lane ran parallel to and just makai of School Street. You could access it from Fort Street, which today is Pali Highway.

When I wrote the original article, I didn’t know whether there was a connection to the Holt family that is very well known in the islands. I found that there was.

Holt Lane was so named because John Dominis Holt II, a member of King Kalakaua’s staff, built a large wood-frame house there in 1883, next to Pauoa Stream.

Several of my readers said they grew up at the camp as well.

Stephen Hironaka remembers his mom saying the rent in the late 1940s was $16 a month ($150 today). “We were all poor. My parents were immigrants from Japan who worked on the sugar plantation.

“My mom was born in Hilo, and when her parents’ contract expired, they chose to return to Japan. She came back to Hawaii as a picture bride for my dad.

“Dad worked three jobs. Mom also worked as a maid. Public assistance was never heard of, maybe because of embarrassment, but more so, pride.”

Ted Kanemori said his family lived there as well. “In those days, to make spending money, I sold newspapers at the corner by Chun Hoon Market (School Street and Nuuanu Avenue), made friends with the projectionist at the Golden Wall Theatre and used to watch free movies from the projection room. Happy days.”

NELSON CHANG said he lived in a “small hovel in an immigrant community on Cottage Walk right behind the Golden Wall Theatre and Kaneda’s. I may have been more affluent than Jeffrey because I shared a very small room with my brother.

“At any one time there were about three generations living in that house, which was owned by my grandparents.

“I remember how the children in the lane would huddle around radios and cower under blankets listening to ghost stories. The sound effects that came with the stories were very authentic. I even remember receiving my first crystal radio.

“Our first television set was a black-and-white Zenith that my father proudly brought home. He had made a special stand for it. We were all amazed at the moving pictures.

“I don’t remember ever missing a meal,” Chang says. “Whenever a can of food was removed from the shelf, my grandfather would replace it; he did not want us to see an empty space on the shelf. He did not want us to worry about food.

“I went to Royal Elementary School. I would walk to school in my bare feet. There was a time when I did not own a pair of shoes, but as the years went by the school started requiring all students to have footwear. I remember loudly protesting wearing anything on my feet.

“IN THOSE DAYS ethnic differences were as common as breathing. We shared our lives, our games, our schools, our parks and communities with people of different colors and cultures. We danced with, played with and lived with diversity. We knew we were different but we never noticed nor cared.

“We laughed and made fun of our differences. Teasing each other’s differences became a common way of showing friendship and affection. Instead of emphasizing it, we accepted and welcomed it. We found humor and mirth in our differences.”

Betty Jong wrote to me about the Golden Wall Theatre. “It was owned and operated by my late father-in-law, Mr. Chong Kam Sing. It has since been replaced by an apartment complex (at 60 South School St.) which is run by the family.”

In the article, I mentioned that the theater was called the Kam Sing (her father-in-law’s name) when it opened in 1929. Betty told me that “Golden Wall” is the English translation of his Chinese name.

THE CHINESE OPERA performed at the theater, as did many stage shows and movies.

Born and raised on the slopes of Punchbowl, Tom Mendes says he walked to the Golden Wall “where the movie was 9 cents and we could spend the other 6 cents we were given on a box of candy with a prize.”

“I actually met and shook the hand of Hopalong Cassidy on the stage at the Golden Wall. We also enjoyed movies of Lash LaRue, Johnny Mack Brown and a couple of science fiction series whose names I no longer remember.”

One of the things I asked my readers in the first article was what the Vee tree is. Wataoka described eating its fruit. A few wondered if it might be strawberry guava, but more than six sharp readers pointed me toward the Spondias dulcis (or Spondias cytherea), known commonly as ambarella.

Pila Wilson, at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, said it is a tropical tree, with edible fruit containing a fibrous pit.

The fruit can be eaten raw. The golden flesh is juicy, crunchy and a little sour and has a pineapple-mango flavor.

In the future I’ll write more about the Holts’ home in the area and the larger estate they owned in Makaha.

Bob Sigall, author of the Companies We Keep books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories each Friday of Hawaii people, places and companies. Email him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.