Waikiki's Natatorium

Growing up, I knew the Natatorium as a gated, crumbling structure where you could fish off of. For other members of my family -- who preceded me by a decade -- it was a place to go swimming. These days, it's mostly known for the threat it poses to a mother monk seal and her pup.

Thanks to Google Earth, we have digitized 3D views of what the Natatorium looked like in 2009 -- the most recent satellite/aerial imagery of this particular location.

And thanks to the monk seal cam's view from today, we can see what the Natatorium looks like, now.

As you might notice, the structure continues to crumble, with many more pukas (holes) in the concrete surface.

For decades they've talked on and off about doing something about it, flipping back and forth between removing the structure to restore the original beach or to refurbish and modernize it. In Hawaii, things move in an ebb and flow at a very leisurely rate. For instance, passenger rail is something that was talked about since the 1980s, but only just recently moved forward -- even then, it remains mired in controversy between completing the full build or stopping short. The Natatorium is exactly the same.

One year after it opened, State Archives, via https://goo.gl/Y4ALsR

If they wait another two decades to act, eventually it'll be fully destroyed and a marine wildlife sanctuary for scuba divers and snorkelers.

Hawaii: Where grumbling about doing nothing is matched by the grumbling about doing something, leading to decisions that take decades.