Nu'uanu Avenue runs past you here, the historic commercial and diplomatic spine of nineteenth-century Honolulu. In the era of the Hawaiian Kingdom, this corridor was lined with foreign consulates, merchant houses, and the handsome Victorian residences of wealthy traders and diplomats. The Nu'uanu Stream, which runs through this valley down from the Ko'olau Mountains, provided fresh water that made this area particularly desirable for settlement.
You are also close to the Royal Mausoleum in Nu'uanu Valley, where the remains of Hawaiian royalty — kings and queens of the Kamehameha and Kalakaua dynasties — rest in a shaded Gothic chapel. The Victorian architectural vocabulary visible in the older buildings along this corridor tells the story of the Western merchants and diplomats who gradually built enormous influence in the Hawaiian Kingdom throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. By 1893, these same commercial interests would back the overthrow of the monarchy.
Nu'uanu Avenue today still retains some of that nineteenth-century character — a quiet reminder that Honolulu was once a city of carriages, of diplomats in frock coats, and of a sovereign kingdom trying to navigate the treacherous politics of the age of empire.