Post #281654 by hodadhank on Mon, Jan 29, 2007 1:04 PM

I'm sitting in the post office in the Waikiki International Marketplace gazing out the window as a tremendous yellow back hoe tears into the deteriorated shell of one of the greatest and most appropriately located Trader Vic's.

Sure it's been a quarter century since my parents first brought me here, I actually remember daily pig roasts in the square here where dozens of Asian vendors now sell identical merchandise from cramped tightly packed kiosks.

Even though the once wondrous Int'l Marketplace now more resembles a Hawaiian Tijuana, I can't shake the feeling I'm watching someone drive a spike through the faintly beating heart of a long forgotten American Dream.

RIP Trader Vic's Waikiki. There's no coming back from this one.

Now you see them...

Now you don't.(The carved doors have vanished during our five days on Kauai.)

How NOT to move a priceless mid-century Chinese oven: With a Back hoe.

A small crowd of onlookers watch the terrible scene in stunned silence and disbelief...