Rearview Mirror: Several downtown locations were considered for City Hall, aka Honolulu Hale

In the past few months I’ve spent some time exploring locations that were considered for iconic Hawaii places, such as the Hawai‘i Convention Center, the state Capitol, National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Neal Blaisdell Center, Aloha Stadium and University of Hawaii.

This week I thought I’d look at City Hall, which since 1929 has been called Honolulu Hale. There are some interesting aspects of its story most readers will be surprised by.

City Hall is at the corner of Punchbowl and King streets, but several other locations were considered.

About 115 years ago Honolulu was incorporated as a city and county and elected its first Board of Supervisors (now called the City Council).

It rented office space in the downtown area for staffers but was paying a substantial amount for the privilege. Around 1910, city leaders decided we needed a city hall, like most other large U.S. cities.

Mayor Johnny Wilson said a new city hall should be able to house a new police station, emergency hospital, fire substation and auditorium.

Most of the locations studied were in the area between downtown and Iolani Palace. Only one was beyond that: the one that was chosen.

Proposed locations for City Hall

>> The original Honolulu Hale, next to the Kameha­meha V post office on Merchant Street

>> The Model Progress Building, 1188 Fort St. at Beretania Street

>> The upper floor of the Pantheon block, Fort and Hotel streets

>> The Allen site between King, Richards, Hotel and Alakea streets, where the YWCA is

>> The Gore site, a triangular block bounded by King and Alakea streets, Iolani Palace and Merchant Street, where Hawaiian Electric is

>> The Kapiolani Building at King and Alakea streets

>> The former Central Union Church site, now the state Capitol grounds at Beretania and Richards streets

>> Punchbowl site, at King, Hotel and Punchbowl streets

Honolulu Hale

I always assumed that the term “Honolulu Hale” was synonymous with City Hall. But in researching this topic, I found that Honolulu Hale was originally a private, two-story building on Merchant Street, just Diamond Head of the location of the old Kamehameha V post office.

The coral stone building was erected in 1835. Paty & Co., merchants and auctioneers, moved into it the following September. After William Paty was appointed collector of the port in 1843, Honolulu Hale served as Customs House.

Several other kingdom departments moved in by 1846, including the Finance Office and the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

All of the business of the Hawaiian government was transacted there, and the life of the town centered in that neighborhood to a considerable extent.

Central Union Church

Another site that was considered was the Richards and Beretania streets site of Central Union Church. Today that’s part of the state Capitol grounds.

Central Union Church was there from the 1890s until about 1922, when it moved to its current location at Punahou and Beretania streets.

It might have been interesting if the city chose that site for City Hall. Would the state Capitol have gone elsewhere? Would it have shared the location with the city?

I tend to think the state would have chosen another location for its capitol, such as the former Fort Armstrong site, now Pier 1 and 2, if the city beat them to that location. But who knows?

Punchbowl and King streets

This location was the farthest from downtown, and Wilson, the mayor, didn’t like it for that reason.

What occupied the Hono­lulu Municipal Building’s current location before it was built in 1929? Historian Wendy Tolleson and I have been exploring it. She has found that it was the Territorial Stable Co., established in 1900 by Gustave Schumann.

“Gus,” as people called him, was in the carriage business before getting into automobiles. He came to Hawaii in 1884 and worked as a carriage trimmer.

Schumann Carriage was founded by him in 1897. It sold motorcars beginning in 1904.

The Territorial Stables offered rigs of many types, an ad said, and the very best horses.

The Board of Supervisors chose this site because its distance meant more land could be purchased for less money.

The Allen site at King and Alakea streets was 84,000 square feet and would cost about $600,000, while the Punchbowl site was 130,000 square feet and would cost $200,000, one analysis concluded.

Architecture

The top architects in Hawaii — C.W. Dickey, Hart Wood, Robert Miller, Guy Rothwell, John Kangeter and Marcus Lester —worked together to design City Hall. The contractor was Walker & Olund.

Ground was broken on Aug. 14, 1928, and the cornerstone was laid on Dec. 28. Construction took about a year. The project was enormous. It took 300 tons of steel, 8,600 cubic yards of concrete and employed hundreds.

Some have said that the California Spanish style for the exterior of the building was made popular by actor Rudolph Valentino, a heartthrob of the 1920s.

The Royal Hawaiian Hotel, Honolulu Museum of Art and Hawaiian Electric Building are also in this style.

Tower

The halls of Italian hill towns all had towers, and so does our City Hall.

The eight-story tower was intended to house the fire and police alarm signal station, but that was later put in the basement. Conference rooms and offices then were in the tower until insufficient egress routes and safety concerns caused them to be closed.

The interior style may be best described as Romanesque with Chinese tendencies, The Honolulu Adver­- tiser said.

Grand stairway

City Hall’s interior courtyard and staircase were modeled after the Palazzo del Bargello, which was built in the 13th century in Florence, Italy.

“The stairs rise in one flight to a large landing on the second floor,” the Advertiser wrote, “and in a second flight to the third floor. This landing has been planned so that it might be used as a rostrum at a public meeting. In the lobby downstairs and on the balconies on the first, second and third floors, 2,000 listeners could be accommodated.”

Polynesian designs

Elnar Peterson, a Los Angeles artist who painted the ceiling in the Alexander & Baldwin building, designed and crafted the ceilings of the lobby, the main court, assembly room and mayor’s office.

Medallions of the assembly room ceiling depicted typical scenes from daily Hawaiian life: pounding poi, making tapa, mending nets, spearing fish and dancing the hula.

Time capsule

The largest time capsule I’ve heard of in Hawaii was put into the cornerstone and area behind it.

More than 500 items were kept, including photographs, histories, newspapers, magazines, lei, letters, phone directories, high school yearbooks and maps. A list of all the contents ran in the Advertiser in 1928 and took up half a page.

The cornerstone bears the motto “Ua Mau ke Ea o ka ‘Aina i ka Pono,” the state motto; the date MCMXXVIII; a bronze seal of the City and County of Honolulu; and the name of Mayor Charles Arnold.

On Dec. 11, 1929, the Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution sponsored by Manuel Pacheco naming the new City Hall officially as Honolulu Hale.

Today, hardly anyone remembers that Honolulu Hale was the site of a small, private coral building on Merchant Street for 94 years before City Hall was built in 1929.

The Rearview Mirror Insider is Bob Sigall’s now twice-weekly free email newsletter that gives readers behind-the-scenes background, stories that wouldn’t fit in the column, and lots of interesting details. Join and be an Insider at RearviewMirrorInsider.com. Mahalo!