It’s been a while since I opened my mailbag and responded to reader inquiries.
A dream come true
Alan Sugihara asked about a concrete inscription that is carved into the sidewalk on Waialae Avenue.
It’s in the entranceway to Azteca Restaurant and the old Gecko Books near Koko Head Avenue. It says:
C.S. Crane
Mayor Honolulu
A Dream Come True
Tuck Yee Yap
9/1/38
“I recognize Mayor Crane’s name but have no idea who Tuck Yee Yap was,” Sugihara said. “Do you happen to know what the occasion was that led to this inscription?
“What was the ‘dream’ that it mentions? I’d love to read about the rest of the story.”
What I was able to find is that Tuck Yee Yap owned the Kaimuki Super-Market on that site in 1938. It was his “dream come true.”
Burl Burlingame mentioned it in a 1998 Honolulu Star-Bulletin column. Yee’s dream was a modern supermarket, he said. This was 10 years before Foodland opened.
Yee went to Punahou School and Stanford University, and got a business degree from New York University. His father had come from China when he was 16, and owned several businesses.
It appears Mayor Crane signed the concrete himself at a ceremony there in 1938.
Kau Kau Jr.
Pat Kurisu asked if I remember Kau Kau Jr. on Nimitz. “I believe they offered Kentucky Fried Chicken that came with a biscuit and honey, and hamburgers were 5 for $1.” She also asked about Thunderbird Drive-In in Kalihi.
I had written about the Kau Kau Korner in November. It was founded by “Sunny” Sundstrom in 1935. He had arrived in the islands in 1932 with $3 in his pocket.
He said he opened his restaurant at the corner of Kapiolani Boulevard and Kalakaua Avenue (across from today’s convention center) because there wasn’t a decent place to buy a hamburger in Honolulu. At first his drive-in had just six stools at a counter.
A friend suggested he brand his location the “Crossroads of the Pacific.” He erected a tall pole outside with arrows and distances to Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, New York, Manila, London and other cities with “Crossroads of the Pacific” above them.
Photos of it appeared in Time, Life, Look and Fortune magazines. It made him famous.
In 1957 he opened Kau Kau Jr. on Nimitz. It was next to where Hilo Hattie’s was.
In 1960 his lease was up and Spencecliff outbid him. Coco’s took over his location. But he opened Kau Kau Kitchen at 2154 Kalakaua Ave. soon after, selling pancakes and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Kau Kau Kapahulu, Kau Kau Kam in Pearl City and Kau Kau McCully followed a few years after that. They closed around 1970.
Thunderbird Drive-In opened in 1961. It sold half-pound char-broiled steaks for 99 cents. Clyde and Frank Yamamoto owned this place at 1555 Dillingham Blvd. It became a Jolly Roger Drive In around 1965. Now it’s an O’Reilly auto parts store.
Tin Tin
Dennis Takeshita asked if I could recall the name of the Chinese restaurant on Maunakea Street that used to be popular with the late-night crowd.
“Unlike Wo Fat, it was a hole-in-the-wall place with customers lined up outside waiting for a table. A lot of the spillover used to go across the street to Tai Sam Yuen if they couldn’t wait.”
It was called Tin Tin Chop Suey and opened at 1110 Maunakea St. between Hotel and Pauahi streets in 1951. It served until 3 a.m. on Friday and Saturdays.
“Back in the 1960s I helped my uncles at their gas station in Pearl City,” Wayne Sumida recalls. “On some Saturday evenings after the station closed, they would take me to Tin Tin. Some nights we would eat family style with gau gee mein and another dish. Some Saturdays we’d have won ton mein. Both were great.”
Tin Tin closed in 1985.
Queenie
Susan Sakai wrote about the dog Queenie, who attended Baldwin High School. I wrote about her on Dec. 14. Sakai says she graduated in 1964.
“I immediately recognized Queenie in the photo with Mrs. Lucille DeMello, who taught social studies and history. Queenie was on campus when I graduated, but by then she was a senior citizen unable to climb the stairs. Fortunately, Mrs. DeMello’s classroom was on the first floor, so Queenie had full access to her food and water bowls.
“Another bit of Queenie lore,” Sakai continued. “Her owner, Ransome Wong, was on the Baldwin High basketball team, coached by my dad, who taught English at the school. Queenie attended basketball practice with her master, and after he graduated she continued to do so.
Kingston Trio
Wendell Brooks Jr. told me he went to UC Berkeley in the late 1950s. “My friends and I would regularly go the Purple Onion in San Francisco to see the Kingston Trio with its two Punahou boys, Dave Guard and Bobby Shane.
“The venue was a popular, small nightclub in a basement in North Beach. If a string on Shane’s guitar would break during a song, they would keep on singing and he would reach into his back pocket, change the string, tune it and continue to sing and play until the song ended, without missing a beat.
“It happened so often that I came to understand it was part of the act. I can still hear them singing ‘Tom Dooley.’”
‘Amadeus Live’
I gave Joe Moore a Rearview Mirror award last month for his 107.9 FM rock ’n’ roll radio show.
Tonight he’ll be introducing an “Amadeus Live” event at the Blaisdell Concert Hall. The movie “Amadeus” will be shown, and the Hawaii Symphony will play the music soundtrack live.
Moore will discuss the truth of Mozart versus the dramatic license that was taken by the filmmakers.
Joseph Momoa
Kimo Kahoano told me that Joseph Momoa — father of Aquaman, Jason Momoa — performed on the “Hawaii Stars” TV show many years ago and won. He had a beautiful voice, Kahoano says.
Miss Hawaii
Leslie Hayashi told me she’s curious about a building at 1740 King St. with the name “Miss Hawaii” on it. It’s a two-story building with the Hata Restaurant below.
The Miss Hawaii Building on King Street in McCully was named for the Miss Hawaii Manufacturing Co., which opened in 1947. It was not associated with the beauty pageant.
‘Iolani
I recently came upon something interesting in researching ‘Iolani school.
A 1940 Star-Bulletin article said King Kamehameha V named the school and that it meant “heavenly dove.” He himself was called that, the article said, referring to part of his middle name.
I had never heard that before. The school says it means royal hawk, or a bird that flies high. But “heavenly dove” is new to me and fascinating.
Martin “Mac” McMorrow told me that his studies have convinced him that the “‘io” in ‘Iolani is the Hawaiian hawk.
“I believe this because the bird call of the Hawaiian hawk is eee ooo. There are other birds the Hawaiians named by their call, such as the wandering tattler, which is called ‘ulili from its call, uuu lee lee.
“The Hawaiian hawk has a shrill, high-pitched call that echoes its Hawaiian name, or ‘io,” McMorrow said. “This raptor is found only in Hawaii and was a symbol of Hawaiian royalty.”
The Rearview Mirror Insider is a weekly email that gives readers behind-the-scenes background, stories that wouldn’t fit in the column, and lots of interesting details. My Insider “posse” gives me ideas for stories and personal experiences that enrich the column. I invite you to join in and be an Insider at rearviewmirrorinsider.com. Mahalo!
