Bishop Street – An Attractive Street

The average visitor of Honolulu is generally much amazed to find himself in an enterprising metropolis. To meet with luxurious limousines and taxis, well paved streets and suburban concrete roads, morning and afternoon newspapers, large department stores and spacious hotels, is an experience not anticipated. Honolulu is not only the commercial metropolis of the Territory of Hawaii, but it is also the territorial capital. In Honolulu is concentrated more than one-fourth of the entire population of the islands.

Hawaii's capital is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. To the women of the city credit must be given for an extensive program of landscaping. Thousands of hibiscus, oleanders, pink and yellow shower trees, poincianas, coconuts, and many other kinds of tropic shrubs and trees have been planted, while the present program of municipal beautification calls for the elimination of overhead wires and poles. Underground conduits are being substituted as rapidly as possible throughout the city.

As we look along this attractive street, we note with interest the absence of billboard advertising. Time was when the business houses in Honolulu painted their names across the sides of their buildings in huge letters. Now the best shops have more the appearance of banks or city offices than of places of trade. Gold leaf letters on plate glass usually announce the name of the firm and the kind of business in which it is engaged. Some outside signs are used and a few small electric signs are floodlighted at night, but today, due to the efforts directed against such garish advertising, there is not a single advertising billboard on the Island of Oahu.