It started out with starry-eyed wishes, lofty goals and a large dose of make-believe.

When Kuhió Park Terrace, the state's largest public housing project, was built in the 1960s, newspaper articles actually called the twin towers the "Poor Man's Ilikai." Headlines spoke of the "prize views" of the high-rise apartments. The planners told reporters that the two 16-story high-rises were designed to be virtually "maintenance-free" and the reporters believed it and wrote that into their stories.

An architect's drawing of the housing complex dated September 1962 depicts a resort-like setting. The edges of the property are represented by soft, wavy lines making it look like ocean-front property. Kids ride their bikes on wide sidewalks through a tree-lined promenade to an athletic complex. Families lounge under umbrellas at the pools — a full-sized one and a little wading pool for the kids. The plans called for barbecue pits and water faucets along Kalihi stream so that families could have picnics along the water. In the drawing, three kites soar impossibly high above the spacious green lawns, as though symbols of the soaring hope for the place.

A year after families moved in, reporters were writing stories about fires, fire alarms, falls, graffiti, crime and large-scale cleanup efforts. Reality hit fast and hard.

It wasn't long before the Hawai'i Housing Authority, then the state agency in charge of public housing, proclaimed the high-rise project a "flop" and tried to foist it off on the military for housing.

Critics of the project had warned that by building high-rises, the Hawai'i Housing Authority would be creating "the slums of the next 20 to 30 years."

Now, 40 years later, the twin towers still stand, pink and worn, along the freeway. The swimming pools are long gone. No one would ever picnic near the Kalihi stream.

In cities like Chicago, the great 1950s-era ideal of high-rise public housing was quickly seen for the many inherent problems in design — elevators that were always broken, the incredible stress of having families live in such close quarters, the dangers of falls from upper stories and the big lie of "maintenance-free" structures. Even before KPT was built, big problems in developments like Cabrini-Green were obvious, but Hawai'i had to learn its own lesson firsthand. The first families started moving in to KPT in 1964. By 1968, the federal government stopped funding high-rise buildings for family housing and efforts had begun in major cities to raze high-rise public housing projects and replace them with less dense housing options.

But KPT still stands, still Hawai'i's largest public housing development, still the best hope for many struggling families.

With so many housing developments, high-end and otherwise, rising up in the Islands, and with the housing crisis affecting so many families up and down the socioeconomic ladder, you wonder if we as a community are just as dazzled and starry-eyed now as everyone was over KPT. A house is a house, right? Just build it. We'll make it work.

But can high-rise living really be that ideal? Is bigger always better? Can the human spirit survive crowding and cramped quarters and the constant noise of neighbors? Will there be space or climate or even the optimism for flying those impossibly high kites?

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.