What Waikiki, Honolulu looked like in the 1960s

Waikiki’s name comes from the Hawaiian words for “spouting waters,” a nod to the freshwater springs that once fed the wetlands behind the beach. Long before tourists arrived in any real number, Hawaiian royalty had already claimed this strip of coastline as their private retreat. During the 1800s, they surfed its waves on heavy koa longboards, a tradition the ocean here was perfectly shaped for. The calm, rolling swells that peel across the reef made Waikiki one of the best longboarding spots on earth — and that reputation has never faded.

The royals eventually transformed their playground into something more formal. Smaller hotels began appearing along the beachfront in the late 1800s. Then, in 1901, the Moana Surfrider opened — Waikiki’s first large hotel, a grand colonial structure that set the tone for the neighborhood’s next century. The Royal Hawaiian Hotel followed in the 1920s, its pink stucco walls earning it the nickname “The Pink Palace of the Pacific.” By the time the 1960s arrived, both landmarks were still standing, but the world around them was changing fast.

The 1960s were a decade of rapid, visible transformation in Waikiki. New towers rose from lots that had held low-slung cottages and small apartment hotels just years before. Construction cranes were a common sight along Kalakaua Avenue, Waikiki’s main commercial strip running parallel to the beach. Buildings like the Waikiki Shore Apartments went up in 1960, the Waikiki Circle Hotel in 1962, and the Foster Tower appeared on Kalakaua during this same window of growth. Each new structure pushed the skyline higher and signaled that Waikiki’s era as a quiet beach town was over.

The surge in development was driven by a simple fact: getting to Hawaii had become affordable. Jet aircraft like the Douglas DC-8 cut travel time from the US mainland to just a few hours. When the Boeing 747 entered service, airlines could carry hundreds of passengers on a single flight. The numbers reflected this shift dramatically. By 1968, Waikiki hosted its first million visitors in a single year, filling roughly 15,000 hotel rooms across the district.

The 12-story Princess Kaiulani Hotel, opened in 1955, offered some of the best vantage points over the changing neighborhood. From its upper floors, photographers captured a Waikiki in transition — low-rise buildings giving way to towers, quiet side streets becoming busy with foot traffic, and the ocean glittering beyond the rooftops to the south. Koa Avenue, running east toward Diamond Head, showed the same pattern: older, smaller structures holding on while new development pressed in from every direction.

One Waikiki landmark that disappeared during this era was the Waikiki Bowl, a beachfront building that sat beside the Surfrider Hotel. By late 1962 it had been demolished, clearing prime beachfront space. The loss was barely mourned — the structure had no architectural distinction, and the land it occupied was far too valuable to leave underused in the middle of a construction boom.

By the mid-to-late 1960s, the pace of change had accelerated further. New towers were going up not just on Kalakaua but on side streets and along Ala Moana Boulevard on Waikiki’s western edge. The view from upper floors of hotels like the Holiday Isle on Lewers Street showed a cityscape shifting in real time — construction scaffolding, fresh concrete, and cranes visible across the district.

Kalakaua Avenue was Waikiki’s nerve center throughout the decade. In the early 1960s it was still a two-way street with on-street parking and metered spaces lining the curbs. Cars from that era — wide-bodied American sedans and the occasional imported compact — moved steadily through the intersection at Kaiulani Avenue, one of the district’s busiest corners. Storefronts like Andrade’s menswear occupied prime corner spots, catering to the visitors who packed the sidewalks.

The Moana Hotel stood as Waikiki’s oldest and most recognizable landmark throughout the 1960s. Its white-columned facade on Kalakaua Avenue was a constant backdrop to the decade’s changes. The hotel’s Banyan Court hosted regular events including Na Kupuna Night on Wednesdays, drawing both tourists and locals. A vintage Oldsmobile Model R Curved Dash Runabout was parked out front to advertise the event — an unusual sight on a street full of modern automobiles.

The intersection of Kalakaua and Kaiulani Avenues captured the full energy of 1960s Waikiki. Looking west along Kalakaua from that corner, a visitor could see a dense mix of hotels, shops, and street vendors stretching toward the beach hotels in either direction. Pedestrian traffic was heavy, and the street itself carried a steady stream of cars in both directions.

Street-level commerce thrived all along Kalakaua. The northeast corner of Kalakaua and Kaiulani was occupied by Andrade’s menswear in 1960, with its bold signage visible from across the street. Kaiulani Avenue itself, running inland from the beach, was lined with smaller hotels and apartment buildings serving travelers on tighter budgets.

The views from the Princess Kaiulani Hotel’s upper floors extended in every direction. Looking inland (mauka), the Ko’olau Mountains dominated the horizon, their peaks often wrapped in clouds. Kuhio Avenue — one block mauka of Kalakaua — was developing quickly as a secondary hotel corridor, with new mid-rise buildings visible throughout the early and mid-1960s.

Moving east along Kalakaua toward Diamond Head, the street scene shifted slightly. The Waikiki Theater marked a prominent spot on the avenue, and from its vicinity one could look east and see the gradual rise of Diamond Head crater looming at the far end of the commercial strip. The International Market Place occupied a large parcel on the mauka (inland) side of Kalakaua and drew enormous foot traffic throughout the decade.

The Royal Hawaiian Hotel’s grounds included a long driveway lined with palms, a quiet contrast to the busy avenue just beyond the hedges. The hotel’s shopping arcade fronted Kalakaua and anchored the makai (ocean-side) commercial strip between Royal Hawaiian Avenue and Lewers Street. Souvenir and lei vendors set up along the sidewalk in front, doing brisk business with the steady stream of tourists passing by.

The Watumull Beach Shops, later renamed the Royal Block, occupied a distinctive stretch on the makai side of Kalakaua between Lewers and Royal Hawaiian Avenue. The storefronts featured palm trees growing through cut-outs in the overhang — a design that managed to feel both tropical and commercial at the same time. Nearby, the McInerny department store opened in 1958 to a design by architect Vladimir Ossipoff, its modernist lines standing out among the more conventional buildings on the block.

Liberty House was one of the most prominent retail anchors on Kalakaua Avenue. The department store opened on the street in 1937 and remained a fixture through the 1960s, sitting right next to the old Waikiki Theatre. Its sidewalk overhang had palm trees growing through cut-outs in the canopy, and its ground floor included a pharmacy and restaurant. The store closed in 1969 when the site was cleared for the 33-floor Waikiki Beachcomber Hotel, which opened in 1970.

The Seaside Avenue intersection with Kalakaua was a busy node throughout the decade. A Union 76 gas station anchored the corner — a practical piece of infrastructure in the middle of a tourist district. Looking east from there, the street lined up directly toward Diamond Head, giving pedestrians and drivers alike a constant view of the volcanic crater that defined Waikiki’s eastern horizon.

Two-way traffic and on-street parking remained features of Kalakaua Avenue well into the late 1960s. The street was wide enough to handle both directions of traffic alongside parked cars, but the growing number of tourists on foot made crossing it increasingly hectic. Photos from 1966 show pedestrians navigating the lane markings near the Royal Hawaiian Avenue intersection, with cars backed up in both directions.

The annual Aloha Week parade was one of the decade’s most photographed recurring events in Waikiki. Held along Kalakaua Avenue, the parade drew pa’u riders on horseback, marching groups, and dense crowds on the sidewalks. The 1961 parade is well documented in photographs taken near the Seaside Avenue intersection, with older Waikiki buildings still visible in the background, soon to be replaced by newer construction.

The stretch of Kalakaua fronting the Royal Hawaiian Hotel’s gardens was among the most photographed in Waikiki. Morning light filtered through tall palms and caught the pink facade of the hotel behind its manicured lawns. Looking east from there, the avenue extended toward the Princess Kaiulani Hotel, the Moana, and eventually toward Diamond Head — a view that framed Waikiki’s commercial heart in one glance.

The International Market Place was one of Waikiki’s defining social spaces in the 1960s. Opened in 1957 on the mauka side of Kalakaua, it was a sprawling open-air market built around a massive banyan tree. Shops like Asia Joe’s imports and Hardwoods Hawaii sold goods ranging from Asian furniture to local woodcraft. The market attracted both tourists and locals, and it hummed with activity from morning until late at night.

One of the more unusual tenants at the International Market Place was radio station KCCN 1420 AM. The “All Hawaiian Music” station broadcast from a treehouse inside the market — the same treehouse associated with Don the Beachcomber’s restaurant — from 1968 to 1973. Before KCCN moved in, broadcaster J. Akuhead Pupule had used the same space during the late 1950s and early 1960s, making the treehouse a genuine piece of Honolulu radio history.

Not everything on Kalakaua was tourism and commerce. In 1965, workers at the Waikiki Beach Press took their grievances to the street, picketing in front of the International Market Place. Their signs were visible from across the avenue, a reminder that behind the tourist-facing facade, Waikiki was also a working neighborhood with its own labor disputes and daily pressures.

By the end of the decade, new towers were reshaping even the most established sections of Kalakaua. The 21-floor Surfrider Hotel tower opened in 1969, its modern face a stark contrast to the older Moana next door. New high-rises to the west, including the Ilikai — which famously appeared in the opening credits of the TV show Hawaii Five-O — redefined Waikiki’s western edge along Ala Moana Boulevard.

The Holiday Isle Hotel at the corner of Kalakaua and Lewers Street was a 14-floor structure built in 1960. It represented the first wave of taller hotels that would soon define the avenue’s look. Diamond Head-facing rooms in the hotel offered guests an unobstructed view of the crater, which by the 1960s had become the visual symbol of Waikiki in tourism marketing nationwide.

Away from Kalakaua, Waikiki’s side streets held a mix of small hotels, apartment buildings, and local businesses. The Coconut Grove Hotel on one of these blocks added a four-story “Googie”-style wing in 1960, its angular modernist design built by Walker Moody Construction. Saratoga Road, running parallel to the beach a block inland from the water, was lined with quieter accommodation options, including the Aloha Punawai Apartment Hotel at number 305.

Along Kalia Road at Beachwalk, one of the more dramatic physical changes of the early 1960s played out in view of anyone walking past. The old Edgewater Bungalows were demolished in stages as the Reef Hotel rose on the beachfront half of the site. Beside it, the 14-floor Waikiki Shore Apartment Hotel climbed above Roy Kelley’s 10-floor Reef Hotel, towering over it on the small footprint left by the former YWCA beach house. The contrast between the old low-rise bungalows and the new towers was striking.

Kuhio Avenue, running one block inland from Kalakaua, was Waikiki’s secondary commercial corridor. The Islander Hotel — originally opened in 1956 as the Waikiki Surf Hotel before Roy Kelley acquired and renamed it — sat on the northwest corner of Kuhio and Seaside. From its upper floors in 1964, photographers captured Kuhio Avenue stretching east toward Diamond Head and north toward the mountains, with a cityscape that was still relatively low in scale compared to what it would become.

The Waikiki Biltmore Hotel, set slightly back from Kalakaua, gave guests a filtered view of the avenue through tall palms. A 1961 photograph taken from inside the hotel captures the sun setting below the horizon, its last light catching the fronds of the palms while Kalakaua’s traffic moved behind them. It’s a reminder that even in the most developed stretch of 1960s Waikiki, the landscape’s natural beauty was always present.

From the upper floors of the 13-floor Waikiki Circle Hotel, built in 1962 near the corner of Uluniu Avenue, the birdseye views along Kalakaua were striking. Looking southeast, Kuhio Beach Park — the stretch of sand running from the Kapahulu Groin to the Waikiki Beach Center — was clearly visible along the shoreline. Looking northwest, the avenue’s hotels and shops extended toward the Royal Hawaiian and beyond, a long ribbon of development running beside the Pacific.

The Ala Wai Canal marked Waikiki’s inland boundary, separating the resort district from the rest of Honolulu. Along the canal’s boulevard, apartment hotels and residential buildings faced the waterway, with the Ko’olau Mountains rising behind the city to the north. The 1968 Aloha Surf Hotel on Kanekapolei Street at Ala Wai Boulevard offered elevated views over the nearby Waikiki Skyliner Apartments and the rooftops stretching toward Diamond Head.

Some of Waikiki’s smaller hotels offered a quieter, more intimate experience. The Breakers on Beachwalk had a pool scene that attracted guests looking for something more relaxed than the main beach. Its second-floor rooms featured Japanese-inspired furnishings, a design choice that reflected Hawaii’s deep cultural connections across the Pacific. These smaller properties coexisted alongside the large new towers going up throughout the decade.

The Waikiki Beach Center on Kalakaua Avenue was a focal point for water activities. A distinctive arch marked its entrance from the street, and rental surfboard racks lined the beachside edge. By the early 1960s, the Beach Center had become one of the main gathering spots in Waikiki — a place where tourists picked up boards, booked outrigger canoe rides, and got their first lessons in surfing from local beachboys.

At the Diamond Head end of Kalakaua, the avenue widened into a larger intersection at Kapahulu Avenue, with the volcanic crater visible in the background. St. Augustine’s Catholic Church stood on this section of the street, its ocean-facing front visible from the avenue. Nearby, the Waikiki Grand Hotel faced the Honolulu Zoo, which occupied the block between Kapahulu and Monsarrat Avenues on the eastern edge of the district.

Kapiolani Park, at the far eastern edge of Waikiki, hosted the annual 50th State Fair throughout the early 1960s. Before Hawaii became the 50th state in 1959, the event had been known as the 49th State Fair — but Alaska’s admission to the union one year earlier had claimed that designation. The park also contained the Waikiki Aquarium, one of the oldest aquariums in the United States, which drew a steady stream of visitors arriving by tour bus along Kalakaua.

The Ala Wai Canal, built in the 1920s to drain the marshlands behind Waikiki, remained the district’s northern boundary throughout the 1960s. Looking east along Ala Wai Boulevard from near Liliuokalani Street, the canal stretched toward Diamond Head with the Ko’olau Mountains visible behind the city. The boulevard would be converted to a one-way westbound road in 1971, the same year Kalakaua was made eastbound only — a traffic reorganization that reflected just how much vehicle volume Waikiki was handling by the end of the decade.

Waikiki’s western edge along Ala Moana Boulevard was the site of some of the decade’s most dramatic construction. The pre-Hilton Hawaiian Village Hotel featured a distinctive aluminum dome built by industrialist Henry Kaiser — a structure visible from across Ala Moana Boulevard at the John Ena Road intersection. By 1960, Kaiser had sold the property to the Hilton chain, but his dome remained a Waikiki landmark well into the decade.

The single largest construction project on Waikiki’s western edge in the early 1960s was the Ilikai Hotel. The 26-floor tower was visible from across the district while still under construction in 1963, its steel frame rising above the Hilton Hawaiian Village next door. When it opened in 1964, the Ilikai was one of the tallest buildings in Hawaii. Its balconies overlooking Ala Wai Harbor and the Pacific became immediately iconic — and its appearance in the opening credits of Hawaii Five-O brought its image into living rooms across the country.

In 1966, a second Ilikai tower was added — the 17-floor Yacht Harbor Tower, built directly beside the original structure and fronting Ala Wai Harbor. From the upper floors of both towers, views extended across the harbor, over Ala Moana Boulevard, and back across Waikiki’s rooftops toward Diamond Head. The Kaiser Medical Center, a 10-floor building on the makai side of Ala Moana between Hobron Lane and Holomoana Street, was also visible from these vantage points — it had been built in 1958 and would stand until its demolition in 1986.

The Kapiolani Drive Inn — a longtime restaurant on the corner of Ala Moana Boulevard and John Ena Road — was still operating in 1966 when the Aloha Week parade rolled past it. By 1968, birdseye photographs taken from the new Rainbow Tower at the Hilton Hawaiian Village showed its footprint had disappeared, cleared for the high-rise Wailana Apartments that opened in 1970. The 21-floor Rainbow Tower itself, completed in 1968, gave photographers an entirely new elevated platform from which to document how much Waikiki had changed.