Aloha|Kalākaua Avenue — The Drive Everyone in Honolulu Has Made

Kalākaua Avenue is two and a half kilometres of one-way traffic named for the last king of Hawaiʻi, and it does three things in sequence: strip mall, luxury retail, then beach. Location records for Aloha put Gilcrest and Ng's drive on the stretch near Kaʻiulani Avenue, in the thick of it, where the Royal Hawaiian's pink stucco shows through a gap between towers and the ABC Store on the corner sells the same macadamia nuts as the ABC Store two blocks down.

Crowe films conversation in cars better than almost anyone, and this is the right road for it — slow enough that people talk, bright enough that the light keeps changing, crowded enough that neither of them can look at the other for long.

The banyans over the sidewalk near Kaʻiulani are the oldest thing on the block. Everything else has been rebuilt at least twice since statehood.

Walk it at dusk instead of driving it. The traffic locks up around six, the tiki torches at the Duke Kahanamoku statue get lit, and the avenue briefly stops being a road and becomes a promenade.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons.