I’ve gotten quite a few comments from my Aug. 26 column about the four corners of Ward Avenue and King Street.
Dexter Wong said, “You wrote about the Trader Vic’s, which used to be at the Honolulu Club site, and wondered why a Polynesian restaurant served Cantonese food. That question intrigued me too because my father was a bartender at Trader Vic’s and collected Trader Vic’s memorabilia.
“After consulting the available online information on Victor Bergeron, including the New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle obituaries on him and two blogs on tropical drinks that referenced Trader Vic, I can say that Trader Vic never tasted real Polynesian food when he set up the first Trader Vic’s in Oakland in 1937.
“One article on Bergeron says: ‘Trader Vic is neither Navajo, Polynesian, nor a sea dog. He’s an American-born Frenchman, married to a former Chicago model. He has never set eyes on Tahiti and doesn’t intend to, because he gets seasick.’
“Bergeron set up his first restaurant, Hinky Dink’s, in Oakland in 1934, which was known for simple food at reasonable prices. He later heard of Don the Beachcomber and his success with exotic rum drinks. He decided to visit Cuba and learn about rum for himself. When he returned, he changed the name and design of Hinky Dink’s.
“It featured South Seas decor, exotic rum drinks and Cantonese food adapted to his exotic atmosphere. Why Cantonese? Probably because he hired Cantonese chefs. He became famous in 1944 for the Mai Tai (an improvement over the same drink created by Don the Beachcomber in 1939).
“His second restaurant was in Seattle in 1948, his third was in Honolulu, and then San Francisco in 1951.
“At the height of his popularity,” Wong says, “there were 25 Trader Vic’s restaurants. In 2012 there were still 18 Trader Vic’s restaurants worldwide and nine related restaurants (like Senor Pico’s) operating.”
That same article mentioned an underground river that flowed under the Trader Vic’s site. I asked readers whether they knew anything about such streams. Several responded.
Martha Jane Urann says she used to swim in the mornings at Kaimana Beach.
“If you’re in the water there, you can sometimes experience a couple of feet of much cooler water as it goes out to sea. An older couple told us that it’s a small underground stream that comes down from the hills. They also said it was traditionally thought to be healing water by local people who bathed there for that reason.”
Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner Michael Kumukauoha Lee says he was “taught by my Hawaii grandfather, Kino, that below Bishop Street was our family’s shark god cave for our kupuna Kamohooalii.
“This cave went to Puu Waina — Punchbowl — and a second cave ran under the old Saint Louis College, mauka of Aala Park.”
Jack Sullivan reminded me that an artesian spring was on the site of the Alexander Young Building downtown, where he had several offices over the years. The site was chosen because that spring produced more than 300,000 gallons of water a day.
While the Alexander Young Building has been gone since 1981, Young Laundry remains as a thriving business.
“I was one of the last guys out when Cliff Melim tore down the building. If a unit was left unoccupied for a goodly period, the water in the toilet would turn green with minerals. We were using the water from the well.
“Contractors building the Pacific Trade Center had a problem capping the well at the corner of Alakea and King.”
Sullivan also recalls that the Ward Stream that came across Kapiolani for many years prevented high-rises in the vicinity of the Flamingo Chuckwagon (where the Pacifica Honolulu building is today). “I don’t know what they had to do the put up that current high-rise.”
Donald Fukumoto said the article brought back an unusual memory.
“I was having lunch at the Pagoda hotel a few years ago around 11 a.m. The Pagoda has an underground spring that I believe is used by the fishpond.
“That day, there was a tsunami warning for the South Shore, but it turned out to only be 6 inches high. It was to hit Honolulu around 11 a.m. or so.
“While we were sitting down for lunch next to the windows, I suddenly noticed that the water in the pond was sloshing around and some was going over onto the grassy area. I thought somebody was washing the pond or something. It was the first time I ever saw that.
“Then, I put two and two together.
“The 6-inch tsunami was hitting Honolulu at about that time and I think the ‘energy’ from the tsunami flowed underground and disbursed some of its ‘energy’ in the pond when it reached there.
“That caused the whole pond around the restaurant to slosh around. That’s the only conclusion I could come to.
“Next time there is a South Shore tsunami warning, go down to the Pagoda and see what happens to the pond,” Fukumoto advises. “You might be surprised.”
Bob Sigall, author of the Companies We Keep books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories each Friday of Hawaii people, places and companies. Email him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.
