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Office Building (Police Station)

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Police Station
1930, Louis Davis. 842 Bethel St.
  • (Photograph by Kaoru Lovett)
  • (Photograph by Kaoru Lovett)
  • (Photograph by Kaoru Lovett)
  • (Photograph by Kaoru Lovett)
  • (Photograph by Kaoru Lovett)
  • (Photograph by Kaoru Lovett)
  • (Photograph by Kaoru Lovett)
  • (Photograph by Kaoru Lovett)

The terra-cotta-framed, eighteen-foot-high entrance of this Spanish Colonial Revival building anchors the corner of Bethel and Merchant streets. Nonfunctional masonry and wrought-iron balconies further invoke the Spanish accent. The almost playful spirit of the balconies is complemented by the swirling stairway, part of an addition in 1939 to the Nuuanu Avenue end of the building. Tile work in the first-floor main room and the stairwell to the upper floors, lavish by Hawaii standards, is worth a look inside. French Roja Alicante marble graces the first-floor counter-tops and Italian Portoro marble frames the top floor's courtroom portals. The police outgrew the building in 1967, and the courts moved in 1983. Since that time the building has housed city and county government office space.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Don J. Hibbard
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Data

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Citation

Don J. Hibbard, "Office Building (Police Station)", [Honolulu, Hawaii], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/HI-01-OA21.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Hawaii

Buildings of Hawaii, Don J. Hibbard. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2011, 95-96.

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