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The dream of a vibrant downtown district surrounding
the
Hawaii Theatre was just a dream until Andy Friedlander started the ARTS
at Marks Garage, and an arty, edgy neighborhood was born.
Meet me at Marks Garage. I’m the one who looks like Santa Claus. Those are the instructions from Andy Friedlander. And yes, he does bear some resemblance to Santa Claus. He’s got the white beard and he has that twinkle in his eye (although Friedlander’s twinkle is probably more wicked than Saint Nick would allow).
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If you want to stretch the analogy a little further, you could say that Friedlander has also been something of a benefactor to what is becoming known as Honolulu’s arts district. The area radiating around Nuuanu Avenue and Bethel Street had been a noman’s land for years; definitely not downtown, not really Chinatown and plagued by drugs and crime. Now it’s taking on a buzz and identity all its own. In the last year, swanky bars, coffee shops, designer stores, galleries — and even more galleries — have sprung open in rapid succession. And there are more brownpapered storefronts, just waiting to be unwrapped to reveal the latest additions. Friedlander is widely credited as the guy who got the arts district going. |
The idea had been talked about for decades, but aside from Indigo restaurant and the Hawaii Theatre, the talk went nowhere. It doesn’t take long in Friedlander’s company to realize he’s a take charge kind of guy. After all, he is cofounder of Colliers Monroe Friedlander, one of Honolulu’s largest commercial real estate companies.
So, frustrated by the lack of action, he went out and bought himself a $2.9 million building smack in the middle of that no-man’s land. After fixing up the 47-yearold Marks Garage, Friedlander set out to find the street-level tenants that would provide the nucleus of an arts center.
So determined was he to get the movement going, he leased a corner spot to The ARTS at Marks Garage for virtually no rent. When The ARTS opened in 2001, people finally started descending on the neighborhood.
“The vision that I’ve had is really to create an area that was not only free of derelicts and drug dealers, but that could be a kind of Chelsea or SoHo,” Friedlander explains as he inhales a black coffee at the Grand Café and Bakery, one of the neighborhood’s new additions. All of this has to be good for the real estate business where he makes his living, but Friedlander also got involved because of his love of art. He has been a collector since the 1960s and recently started dabbling in ceramic sculpture himself with a class at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. |
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He brushes off questions about his talent by saying he creates “weird stuff” that now clutters up his home and quickly steers the conversation back to the arts district.
What is going on there is absolutely incredible, he says. You’ve just got to see it for yourself. And so saying, he grabs your correspondent’s girly shoulder bag and sets off on a whirlwind tour.
Hotfooting it down Nuuanu and pointing out the various eateries, Friedlander rounds onto Hotel Street, darts across the road and lets himself into No. 35. There, Dave Stewart is working on his new venture, Bar 35.
As co-owner of the popular Indigo restaurant, Stewart is one of the pioneers of the area. He jokingly calls himself the mayor of Nuuanu Avenue because he can stand outside Indigo and wave to everyone he knows going by.
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“To me it’s the only place in the city that has that feeling of a neighborhood,” he says. “And I like the edginess.” Stewart leads a quick tour of his new lounge bar with its black leather lounges and dress code sign on the door. “No slippahs, please,” he says, emphatically. Stewart has stocked the place with more than 100 beers by the bottle
from around the world — happy hour is happy indeed with any
12-ounce beer for $3. |
“The challenge is to come in and drink one different beer every night,” says Friedlander gesturing to the ceiling-high display of bottles behind the bar.
Back on the street, Friedlander points out thirtyninehotel, “a gallery by day and party place by night,” before heading for Next Door, an urban cinema and music lounge. This cavernous space with its red brick walls and indolent lipstick-red chaises is a quintessential example of the area’s contemporary grit.
Friedlander zips back across the road to the trendy boutique Into, with its furnishings, fragrances and handbags for the fashionistas.
Into’s co-owner Alan Carrell says they looked everywhere — Kahala, Kapahulu, Waialae — before settling on Hotel Street. They were drawn by the ample parking, the historic architecture and the sense of things happening.
Next door to Into is a burnt out space, just waiting to happen — or not. Despite all the gentrification, make no mistake, there are still the videocades and darkened bars and landlords who don’t feel inclined to join the arts movement. The clash of cultures gives the district its edge. The streets are still a great place for people watching.
Rounding the corner onto Bethel Street, Friedlander points to the future location of an upscale wine bar — yet another Dave Stewart venture. By sometime early next year, the patios and curling grape vines of Du Vin will transport guests to a 1950s French wine bar.
Back on the tour, Friedlander waves in the direction of a future Asian furniture and furnishings showroom, which will be on the corner of Bethel and Pauahi, then leads the way to the Marks Garage block and the Bethel Street Gallery where he and owner Gina O’Neill exclaim over the district’s latest arrivals. Next door, a painter rolls a rich ochre onto the walls and another worker tinkers around behind a gleaming copper espresso bar. The smell of paint will soon be replaced by wafts of The Red Elephant’s specialty coffees. A hallway leads to a large space still stark with drywall that will become a professional recording studio and entertainment venue. |
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Down Chaplain Lane is an oldtime junk store, where Friedlander has plans for another gallery. And on the next corner is The ARTS at Marks Garage, where it all began.
A project of the Hawaii Alliance for Arts Education, The ARTS is a gallery, performance and office space for a number of visual and performing arts organizations.
Managing director Kim Coffee-Isaak is amazed by the changes in the neighborhood since The ARTS opened in 2001.
“They were selling crack right kitty-corner to us — it was just a real problem,” she says. “Hotel Street between Nuuanu and Smith streets, that block has been the worst block as far as drugs and prostitution, and gosh, now I walk down there at night and it’s amazing seeing all the people.”
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And Coffee-Isaak has watched as gallery after gallery has moved into the neighborhood. First there were four, then 19 and now she counts 24. “This last year has just been exponential,” she says. And Honolulu appears to have embraced the idea. Two years ago, businesses in the area started the First Friday gallery walks, staying open late on the first Friday of every month with opening nights, demonstrations and live entertainment. The number of people attending First Friday has gone from around 500 in the early months to about 2,000. And the renaissance is not over yet, Friedlander says. |
"In the next 15 to 18 months there will be so many more changes that people will be amazed,” he promises. |
Source: The Star-Bulletin (MidWeek.com; 8-12-05)