Question: Why are King, Hotel, Beretania, etc., streets that run basically east-west, called North and South starting from Nuuanu Avenue?
Answer: We received a similar question several years ago regarding why Pali and Likelike highways are labeled North-South but the H-3 freeway is designated East-West; and why Kamehameha Highway, between Pali Highway and Mokulele Drive, is designated North-South.
Back then the state Department of Transportation said it was a “nonscientific” matter of placing a ruler on a map of a highway, and if it slanted more east-west, it was designated as such and if it pointed more north-south, it was labeled north-south (see is.gd/PfK2DX).
That prompted a response from reader Eli Kawai, a retired Board of Water Supply employee, who offered an explanation of why King and Beretania streets are designated north-south. He said it was because in the early days of Honolulu, Nuuanu Avenue was the bisecting point of the city. The Diamond Head side was deemed south, and the Ewa side, north.
The street addresses also begin at Nuuanu, he pointed out, with the numbers progressively getting higher as you move in either the “south” or “north” direction (see is.gd/rdopL5).
Ross Stephenson, historian at the Hawai‘i and National Register of Historic Places (part of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources), provided a broader historical context, gleaned from city files in the Municipal Reference Center, explaining that Honolulu street designations are indirectly related to the Chinatown fires of 1886 and 1900.
The two fires gutted much of the dense, central core of Honolulu, providing the Territorial Government with an opportunity to redirect population growth.
“Historically, disease had come through the ports and established itself in the dense settlements adjacent,” Stephenson explained. “The government had tried to use fire in 1900 to control the spread of plague. The government was aware that the proposed Panama Canal project would greatly increase use of (Honolulu) Harbor and the possibility of transporting disease into Hawaii.”
Meanwhile, many plantation labor contracts were simultaneously expiring, spurring an influx of new residents, he said.
“The result was a deliberate government program of population dispersal and strengthened building codes,” Stephenson said. Improvements in public transportation and, later, use of automobiles facilitated the dispersal of residents to new subdivisions in Makiki, Kaimuki, Kalihi, Kapahulu and Manoa, he said.
“The result was the end of the walkable town where everyone knew everyone else,” he said. “The increased population and removal of old physical landmarks by urbanization made locating people and places difficult.”
That prompted the city to establish a commission that worked for years on a numbering system for the streets.
“Unfortunately, the Koolau Mountain spine is not east-west or north-south,” Stephenson said.
“Historically, the city’s axis had been mauka-makai and Diamond Head-Ewa.”
In the “downtown” area, Nuuanu was the major mauka-makai street, making for “a convenient separator for the numbering system,” he said. “Near Nuuanu the streets running parallel to the coast, such as King, are more ‘north’ and ‘south,’ although, after rounding Punchbowl Crater, King and Beretania become more ‘east’ and ‘west.’”
AUWE
To the “auwe” in the April 29 “Kokua Line,” complaining about a dog barking all day/night. The other side of the story: Some cats and dogs don’t get along. If neighbors put their cats away instead of letting them roam, screaming at night, then maybe we won’t be listening to dogs bark all day and night, and we all can get some sleep. If dogs need to be locked up, so do cats! — Da Owner
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Write to “Kokua Line” at Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Honolulu 96813; call 529-4773; fax 529-4750; or email kokualine@staradvertiser.com.
