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The Waikiki War Memorial Natatorium, a saltwater swimming venue opened in 1927 to honor Hawaii's World War I dead and closed in 1979 for safety reasons, sits at the centre of a long-running dispute over whether it should be restored or demolished. Robert J. Fishman argued that a 1921 legislative mandate, reaffirmed by the legislature as recently as 1993, created a moral obligation to fully restore the facility, including its saltwater pool, to honour the servicemen and women it was built to memorialize. Bruce Anderson raised water quality and public health objections, questioning whether those concerns had been adequately addressed by the city's restoration plan. Rick Bernstein, representing the Kaimana Beach Coalition, proposed that the pool be removed, the area returned to beach, and only the memorial arch preserved. Ed Piscosky, the architect and engineer leading the city's renovation effort, maintained that the plan corrected the original design's engineering failures and was technically viable. What should be done with the Natatorium—full restoration with a functioning saltwater pool, partial preservation, or demolition—remains the unresolved public question.
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