My email inbox is usually overflowing with reader comments and questions. Sometimes they ask things I have never considered, such as when Punchbowl was first considered as a cemetery, or about proposed nuclear power plants on Oahu. Let’s take a look.
Punchbowl Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific
Angelika Burgermeister said she went to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific the other day and was wondering who first had the idea to turn it into a cemetery and when.
The earliest suggestion of using Punchbowl, or Puowaina, as a cemetery that I could find was made over 120 years ago.
In 1899 the city needed a new cemetery for local residents and formed a committee to explore possibilities. Members included Sanford Dole, Archibald Cleghorn, David Dayton, Herman Von Holt and Charles Wilcox.
Punchbowl was proposed and rejected by the committee. They feared the dead bodies would contaminate the island’s artesian water supply.
The committee said, “It is very undesirable — a city of the dead above the city of the living, and especially at an altitude where the drainage from that locality shall come directly under the inhabited city to the sea.”
The Cemetery Committee noted that some residents hoped to see homes built in the crater.
About 20 years later the National Guard and police used Punchbowl as a rifle range. Honolulu needed a football stadium, and some suggested Punchbowl would be perfect. Supporters thought it could hold 90,000 people. Honolulu Stadium on King Street was built instead.
Another proposal for Punchbowl that never came to pass was digging a 4,000- foot-long tunnel under the crater, connecting Kuakini Street and Wilder Avenue. This was in 1951. Proponents said it could be used as a bomb shelter in case of nuclear attack.
By the end of World War II, a cemetery was badly needed for those who gave their lives fighting in the Pacific, and planners knew that the dead bodies would not contaminate our drinking water. It opened as a cemetery in 1949.
Nuclear power plant in Heeia?
Ken Goldstein asked about nuclear power plants on Oahu. “I’ve overheard you and Hawaiian practitioner ‘Rocky’ Kaluhiwa, separately, mention the nuclear power plant that was almost constructed in Heeia, and I’d like to know the rest of the story.
“I used to design nuclear power plants early in my engineering career, and I can’t understand why anyone would consider the Heeia Ahupuaa suitable for a fission reactor.
“The geology is wrong, and deep-water channels are too far away, without huge amounts of dredging. Even with the reef and sandbar, the area would also be susceptible to tsunami. Curious engineers want to know!”
I heard about the possibility of a nuclear plant in Heeia many years ago from George Atta, former director of the Department of Planning and Permitting.
In the 1950s, he said, city planners foresaw an increase of 200,000 in Oahu’s population in 20 years. Where would they reside?
Planners thought the population growth would go to Windward Oahu. The Leeward side was still covered with productive sugar cane fields, which didn’t reach their peak until the 1970s.
Increased power generation would be needed, and in 1950, nuclear power was seen as a possible “clean” source for the future.
I asked Hawaiian Electric spokesperson Jim Kelly about this. He said, “In the mid-1960s, under a 30-year lease from Kamehameha Schools, Hawaiian Electric obtained land at Heeia for the purpose of building a power plant to serve the rapidly growing Windward side of Oahu.”
Sending power with high-voltage lines over the Koolau, which we still do today, is not ideal.
“Like many other utilities at the time, Hawaiian Electric was interested in the potential of nuclear power and talked very openly about the suitability of the Kahe site in a valley on Leeward Oahu for an ‘atomic’ generator.
“While not mentioning Heeia specifically, the company’s 1967 annual report says, ‘We have two power plant sites that we believe will qualify for the use of nuclear power.’
“Nuclear generating stations in sizes of about 500,000 kilowatts or more are compatible with conventional plants burning fossil fuels, but smaller nuclear reactors for our size system have not yet proved to be economically feasible.
“In fact, nuclear power never became feasible for a system of our size. In 1966 the company built a small base yard and warehouse at the Heeia site, but because of new environmental regulations in the early 1970s, HECO gave up its plan to build a power plant there and the base yard was closed a few years later.”
Davies Pacific Center restaurant
JoAnne Yamamoto said, “I need your assistance in helping me remember the name of the restaurant in the Davies Pacific Center, facing Merchant Street.
“I fondly remember their courteous staff and simple but delicious breakfast and lunch back in the late 1970s. Do any of your readers remember this restaurant?”
I had an office in the Theo Davies Building in 1978-80. The two I can remember were Flamingo and Arthur’s. The latter had moved from Foster Towers in Waikiki to downtown. It was a fancy French place.
Flamingo’s roots trace back to 1950 when Steven Nagamine bought the old Olympic Grill. “It was on Ala Moana Boulevard where Waterfront Plaza is today,” said daughter Sandy Chong.
On a trip to Las Vegas, the big neon Flamingo Hotel sign inspired Nagamine to change the restaurant’s name. “The logos were similar, and people asked all the time if we’re related,” Chong continued.
Flamingo sold complete meals, initially for 35 cents. Customers would get a fruit cup, soup or salad, entree, drink and dessert. The restaurant also put out a relish tray because Nagamine loved green onions, carrots and olives.
Nagamine bought the Pied Piper cafe on Kapiolani Boulevard where the Million Restaurant is now. There were Flamingos in Pearl City and Kaneohe.
There also was the Flamingo Royal Lanai and Flamingo Chuckwagon, making three restaurants on Kapiolani Boulevard in less than a mile.
The Nagamine family then sold to KG Lee, who opened a Flamingo restaurant at Moanalua 99, and another in the former Grace’s Drive-In in Waimalu.
All are gone, but KG Lee still sells their famous double-crusted banana, apple, peach and blueberry pies through most Marukai, Don Quijote and Times stores. He hopes to reopen a Flamingo restaurant someday.
I shared this with Yamamoto, and she confirmed it was Flamingo’s she remembered in the Davies Pacific Center.
Sam Slom
Former Republican state Sen. Sam Slom died Sunday. Whether or not you knew or liked him, if you enjoy Rearview Mirror, to some extent it was due to Slom. Let me explain.
Lex Brodie created Small Business Hawaii in 1974 and turned it over to Slom in 1983. His leadership sustained it for the next three decades.
I enjoyed the organization’s networking lunches and was invited to join its board of directors a few years later.
Lola Lackey from Hawaii Pacific University attended a Small Business Hawaii class I taught on marketing and hired me to join HPU’s business faculty.
An assignment given to my students to teach them the value of networking led to writing my five “Companies We Keep” books, which SBH published. Twelve years ago, after my third book came out, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser asked me to write this Rearview Mirror column.
I salute Slom for his efforts to help small businesses in general, and me in particular.
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Bob Sigall writes the Rearview Mirror column every Friday. Send your comments or suggestions to Sigall@Yahoo.com.
