Honolulu tours that relive history

Sunset, July, 1989

Go sleuthing downtown at dusk with a famous Honolulu detective of 60 years ago. Stroll Iolani Palace grounds with costumed palace members who describe the site in 1893, when the Hawaiian Kingdom was overthrown. Walk the Waikiki Beach that visitors saw in the 1920s.

The places are real, but your guides are only actors. These are just three of a dozen Stories of Honolulu adventures offered monthly by Kapiolani Community College and conducted by experts, some of whom also teach commercial tour guides. The inexpensive, imaginative walking tours or storytelling gatherings of 2 or 3 hours can be good learning experiences even for long-time residents. Each is limited to 20 participants; register and pay in advance. New schedules are issued quarterly.

On the beat, on the barricades, on the waterfront

On "Honolulu: The Crime Beat," your guide takes on the persona of Detective Arthur McDuffie, who sports a brown fedora and a red carnation in his lapel and is accompanied by a briefcase-toting, nonEnglish-speaking secretary he calls China. He walks you through downtown and Chinatown, working out notorious crimes of the 1920s and '30s.

"Revolution" lets you experience the tragedy of Queen Liliuokalani's struggle to hold onto her country. You stop just outside the palace fence and gather around an impressive sculpture of this last ruler, noble in bearing, her hand extended in a gesture of friendship-but her face a sorrowful mask.

Other tours visit the village of Honolulu in 1831; the ethnic communities of downtown, the Kaimuiki district, and the Moiliili district as they were 50 years ago; downtown Honolulu as "homefront" during World War II; and one of the city's oldest graveyards, whose tombstones tell of many pioneer families and historical figures. In storytelling sessions, you meet ghosts and kings and queens, and see what inspired Don Blanding's poems of 1930s Honolulu and Waikiki.

For a program schedule and to reserve space on a tour, write or call Office of Community Services, Kapiolani Community College, 4303 Diamond Head Rd., Honolulu 96816; (808) 734-9211. Tours cost $5 for adults, $2 for ages 5 through 16. Make checks payable to Kapiolani Community College and try to reserve four weeks ahead.