Chinatown

This guide to Honolulu's Chinatown opens in December 1899, when a young bookkeeper falls ill and dies of bubonic plague, and the Board of Health seals off fourteen blocks holding roughly seven thousand people. You'll hear how doctors, believing the disease traveled on fleas and rats, turned to a drastic method to stop it, ordering infected buildings burned block by block through January of 1900, near where Kaumakapili Church once stood. Look at the brick storefronts and iron fire escapes along Maunakea Street as you listen.