Mayor envisions Chinatown as arts, cultural center
Crystal Kua, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Monday, March 28, 2005
I love Chinatown. It's home to some of the best... er, "local color" you can find in Honolulu. Of course, there are both spectacular and rich elements, and a few bad elements as well. I think this is an interesting initiative, but in the end I hope Chinatown isn't "cleaned up" to the point of being a sterile, artificially preserved "picture" of culture than a thriving, living hub of it.
I could probably do without the pee-filled doorways, but the ocassional disheveled evangelizing bible thumper? Why not?
Hmm. I hope he's not saying he wants another Waikiki. Just a more local-facing investment of capital and political attention.
Crystal Kua, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Monday, March 28, 2005
Chinatown holds special boyhood memories for Mayor Mufi Hannemann... Hannemann also has a love of the arts, which he hopes to marry with his desire to see Chinatown and the surrounding downtown Honolulu area become a destination for arts and culture on Oahu to boost economic benefits. "I want to make Chinatown come alive in the evening," he said. "What I want to now do is bring in the arts community, make this truly the arts center. ... If you want arts and culture, that's where you go."
I could probably do without the pee-filled doorways, but the ocassional disheveled evangelizing bible thumper? Why not?
"I think what's been missing was a mayor that's going to pay attention to Chinatown the way the last mayor paid attention to Waikiki," Hannemann said.
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