Flamingo, famous names grab readers’ attention

I get a lot of email and letters about the subjects I cover in my column, and in 2 1/2 years I’ve never written about them. This week I thought I’d share some of these letters with you.

My friend Rick Ornellas questioned the location of the Flamingo restaurant on Ala Moana Boulevard. In my Sept. 20 column, I said it was where Restaurant Row is. Hono­lulu Iron Works used to inhabit the Restaurant Row site.

Rick recalls Flamingo being across South Street where CompUSA was. Several of the friends I asked also thought it was on the CompUSA site.

When I talked to Flamingo founder Steven Nagamine’s daughter, Sandy Chong, several years ago, she said her father opened it where Restaurant Row is now. Sandy used to manage the Kaneohe Flamingo.

I looked up the address in the 1957 phone book. It was at 574 Ala Moana. Restaurant Row is the 500 block of Ala Moana. CompUSA is the 600 block.

I found several old maps of the area, and the geography has changed somewhat in the past 50 years. Auahi Street, which now ends at South Street, once went another block Ewa and connected to Ala Moana Boulevard. It created a triangle of land that today is a lawn fronting Restaurant Row.

One old map I looked at showed that Auahi Street was once called First Street, and Pohukaina was called Second Street.

I went to the corner of Ala Moana and South Street this week to see if I could pin down Flamingo’s exact location.

If you look closely at the photo of the Nagamine family outside their cafe, you can see cars waiting at the stoplight at South Street. Beyond that, the road curves to go past the Kakaako Pumping Station smokestack and the Gold Bond Building.

By comparing the photo to today’s view, I am now certain Flamingo was about where the bus stop is in front of Ruth’s Chris Steak House at Restaurant Row.

On June 29 I wrote about Mother Waldron Park in Kakaako. A couple of readers wanted to know the location of the Kakaako Branch Hospital, where Saint Marianne and the Sisters of St. Francis worked with leprosy patients in the 1880s.

There’s a monument to Saint Marianne at Kewalo Basin Park. Was the hospital there, I wondered? The Sisters of St. Francis tell me no, it actually was about where old Immigration Station was on the makai side of Ala Moana. Today the Department of Homeland Security is there. Fort Armstrong is next to that.

My research found that the hospital was visible to all ships entering Hono­lulu Harbor, and many tourists asked what it was. They weren’t happy to learn it was where Hono­lulu’s leprosy patients were treated, and this caused the powers that be to move it to Kalihi.

One of the biggest critiques readers give me is for not being complete in my coverage of a story. I left something out that they felt should have been included.

In my defense, I only get about 700 words for a column, and that’s not enough to cover any topic completely.

I wrote about the back stories behind three pieces of art in the Hono­lulu Museum of Art on June 7. Reader Janet Weyenberg wished I had written more about the "amazing and valuable collection of contemporary art which was gifted to the Academy by the Contemporary Museum — along with many other assets — which bailed the Academy out of a huge financial hole."

"The man behind this generous gift," she pointed out, "is Thurston Twigg-Smith, founder of The Contemporary Museum."

Some of my readers ask follow-up questions to my columns, such as how a non-Chinese name like Wo became the family surname, instead of Ching. I wrote about C.S. Wo on July 12.

Bub Wo told me that "when my grandfather opened his business, all correspondence was directed to Mr. Ching Sing Wo, which became Mr. C.S. Wo and eventually evolved to Mr. Wo. He became known as Mr. Wo throughout the community and amongst business associates, and it became very confusing for everyone since our family name was still Ching at that time. In an effort to simplify and avoid confusion, we finally legally changed the family name to Wo, since that was how most people referred to my grandfather."

The most frequent thing readers ask me in public is what I’ll be writing about this week or next.

One topic on my plate is teahouses. Hawaii at one time used to have more than 30 of them, with many in the Li­liha area. I wrote about Natsu­noya Tea House in Alewa Heights in my first book, but there were many more.

If any of my readers have recollections of Kanraku, Mochizuki, Ishii Gardens, Kasuga, Nuuanu Onsen, Rainbow Gardens or any other Japa­nese teahouse, I’d like to hear about them.

Some readers suggest topics to cover. Alice Tucker suggested I write a column about Hawaii people with unusual first names. She mentioned Wadsworth Yee, Chauncey Ching, Tennyson Lum and Percival Chee.

It made me think of Sigfried Poesch, or Siggy as he was known, who managed the Third Floor restaurant for more than 20 years. A.L. Kilgo operated a hardware and garden store on Sand Island Road for many decades. Many who remember him might not know A.L. stood for Aubra Laura Kilgo.

Can you think of some unusual first names of well-known Hawaii people? If so, drop me a line.

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.