Construction of Aloha Tower began in 1924. It was completed in a year
and a half and became the landmark of Honolulu.
At 10 stories and 184 feet of height topped with 40 feet of flag mast,
for four decades the Aloha Tower was the tallest structure in Hawaii. It was
built in the Hawaiian Gothic architectural style.
The 4 clocks, each face 12 feet in diameter (by far the biggest clock
in the Territory of Hawai‘i and one of the largest in the United States at the
time) and facing different directions, were made of bronze and weighed 7 tons
each.
If a ship or person was too far away to read the clock, two other means
of time synchronization were provided. A time ball was lowered to the bottom of
the forty-foot mast atop the tower each day at noon, and the blast of a siren
was sounded at 7 am, noon and 4 pm.
Aloha Tower was built as a control tower for the Honolulu harbormaster
and a lighthouse as part of a modern freight and passenger terminal at piers 8,
9 and 10.
In addition, it provided offices for the harbor master, pilots and
customs officials. The eleventh floor of
the tower served as a lookout for the harbor pilots, with balconies on all four
sides.
In the day (pre-1959 trans-Pacific jetliner service,) the method of
travel to Hawai‘i was by ship. Aloha
Tower welcomed cruise passengers/visitors to the islands.
When the attack on Pearl Harbor came on December 7, 1941, Coast
Guardsmen took up defensive positions around Aloha Tower and protected it from
being occupied.
The Aloha Tower received little damage during the bombing of Pearl
Harbor, but shortly thereafter, it was camouflaged with brown and green paint,
and its light was extinguished for the remainder of the war.
Pre- and during WW II, the tower had been secretly a control facility
for military convoy shipping for the Pacific Theater of Operations. The military took control of the facility and
painted it camouflage to minimize detection.
In 1947, the green camouflage paint was sandblasted from the tower and
the brilliant white paint replaced.
By the late 1960s, tall buildings were crowding the tower, and the
Coast Guard decided to discontinue the beacon atop the Aloha Tower and install
one on a 220-foot television tower.
This navigational aid served until 1975, when the present Honolulu
Harbor Light was established on a metal pole at the end of Pier 2.
Owned by the State of Hawai'i, the Aloha Tower was renovated in 1994,
at no cost to taxpayers, by the developer of the adjacent Aloha Tower
Marketplace.
It was designed by Arthur Reynolds in Art Deco style. It is listed on the State and National
Registers because of its association with the development of Hawaii as a
tourist destination for travelers from the mainland and for its role as a
harbor-control tower during WWII. It is
as an example of 1920s Art Deco architecture in Honolulu.
The image is a 1935 postcard of Honolulu Harbor, Downtown Honolulu and
Aloha Tower. In addition, I have added
some other images of Aloha Tower in a folder of like name in the Photos section
on my Facebook page.
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