Streetcar Days in Honolulu: Breezing Through Paradise

by Mackinnon Simpson

A perspective of the role streetcars played in shaping of urban life in the early days of Honolulu.

Genres: History

156 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

MacKinnon Simpson was raised on a family farm in Pottersville, in rural northern New Jersey.

He was a father of two and tutu kane to a pair of rambunctious grandkids. He settled in Honolulu, where his occupations ran the gamut from motorcycle sales to cable TV executive.

Simpson self-identified as a writer since the third grade. Ultimately, he returned to writing and wrote his first book, WhaleSong, in 1986. WhaleSong was the first real book written and designed on an Apple Macintosh computer, and was called by the head of Time-Life Books “the book which changed the face of American publishing.”

He went on to write, design, and publish more than 25 large-format illustrated books. In addition to books on Hawaiʻi’s history, he wrote silliness for the Tiger Magazine, the occasional radio jingle, a computer manual, and all the exhibits for a maritime museum.

Reviews

[Ruppert Baird · Rating 3 out of 5]

Abandoned and torn up just months before the Pearl Harbor attack, Honolulu Rapid Transit was a typical American trolley line. Simpson has done an admirable job of gleaning what is left of HRT and putting the history in this book.

[Arvid · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice photos. Since the trollies, electric street cards, buses, and buggy trains date back to 1900s, it is interesting that the electric street cards lasted all of just half century. Our Honolulu HART must have derived its acronym from the original HRT (Honolulu Rapid Transit). I have seen the vintage streetcar fare tokens in a coinshop on Bishop Street near the corner of Hotel Street. Used to own a dozen of them in the early 1980s. Yhe Stgreetcar-Trolley Bus-era General Managers span the years 1900 thru 1966. 1923 was the height of the HRT ridership but unfortunately for the streetcars, it coincided with the Ford Model-T production.