Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Hawaiʻi’s First Skyscraper

At six stories, the Stangenwald building was considered Hawaii’s first skyscraper and one of the most prestigious addresses in Honolulu.

Designed by noted architect Charles William Dickey, construction of the steel-frame and brick building began in 1900 and the building was completed in 1901.

The Stangenwald Building melds Italian Renaissance Revival elements and a hint of the Romanesque Revival Style with arched windows, terra cotta ornaments, and a wide balcony with fine grillwork above the entrance.

Dr. Hugo Stangenwald, the “student revolutionist, Austrian émigré, able practicing physician, and recognized early-day daguerreotype artist (photographic process,)” left Austria in March 1845. After living in California, he arrived in Honolulu in 1853. He married the former Mary Dimond in 1854.

He opened a shop in late-1854 in a one-story frame structure on the site of the present Stangenwald building. His advertisement was well-known: “To send to them that precious boon, And have your picture taken soon, And quick their weeping eyes they’ll wipe To smile upon your daguerreotype.”

Stangenwald bought the Merchant Street property in 1869 and formed a partnership with his fellow-physician neighbor, Dr. Judd.

In January, 1899, Stangenwald leased his property to a hui, a limited partnership firm which was to lease his property from him and erect a building there to match the quality of the Judd Building (1898) next door.

Though the project was named for the well-known physician and photographer, Stangenwald had little to do with it.  He died in June of that year.

The hui sold its interest in the land to the Pacific Building Company, newly formed to finance the project.

The building’s earliest occupants were lawyers, many of whom were in the hui and so had a vested interest in the building, so that early conceptions of the building included a law library and a Business Men’s Club, though neither were realized in the final building.

The Stangenwald Building’s steel frame supported a decorative structure, “with dark terra cotta and pressed metal trimmings and cornice, massive in design yet promising a pleasing effect. This building is of the most modern style of fire-proof architecture, designed with completeness of office conveniences equal to that of any city.”

Honolulu’s business community seemed to agree, for its prestigious address was claimed by several of Honolulu’s most prominent company names: The Henry Waterhouse Trust Company, BF Dillingham, Castle and Cooke, Alexander & Baldwin and C Brewer Companies.

It was part of downtown redevelopment plan and construction boom in the wake of the terrible Chinatown fire that destroyed blocks of buildings in 1900.

The Stangenwald remained the tallest structure until 1950, when the seven-story Edgewater Hotel in Waikīkī took over that title.

The building defined Honolulu’s skyline for more than 60 years and it was not until the 19-story First National Bank of Hawaiʻi Building was constructed in 1962 that Honolulu’s downtown would break the six-story mark (the only exceptions being the spires of Aloha Tower (1926) and Honolulu Hale (1929.))

Renovated periodically throughout its life – including alterations to the original ornate cornice, the Stangenwald was the subject of a major rehabilitation in 1980.

Today, the building is home to several architectural firms and the American Institute of Architects (founded in 1926, with Dickey as its inaugural president.)

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Day 046 – December 7, 1819

December 7, 1819 – no entry (Thaddeus Journal)

7. – I am now directly east of the spot where lie a brothers bones. Parental affection wounded by that sad stroke seems to have been seconded by my recent departure. But why do friends mourn my absence, when I go on an errand of mercy to a people sitting in darkness and the shadows of death? (Samuel Whitney Journal)

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The Green Flash

As the sun sinks slowly in the West, there is cause for pause by people as they wish their luck in seeing the elusive “green flash.”
 
I remember the daily ritual on our deck in Kahaluʻu mauka in Kona (as we were growing up, it was the only home we ever lived in with a western orientation and view of the Pacific Ocean.)
 
Scientists say green flashes come in two common forms; these were described by James Prescott Joule in a letter to the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society in 1869.
 
First, he noted that “at the moment of the departure of the sun below the horizon, the last glimpse is coloured bluish green.” This “last glimpse” flash is associated with the inferior mirage, familiar on asphalt roads on sunny days.
 
It is best seen from a few meters above sea level, and becomes compressed to a thin line at the horizon when seen from considerable heights.
 
Joule also observed that “Just at the upper edge, where bands of the sun’s disk are separated one after the other by refraction, each band becomes coloured blue just before it vanishes.”
 
This second form of flash is associated with a mock mirage, which is caused by a thermal inversion below eye level; so it is mainly seen from elevated positions.
 
As light passes from the vacuum of space into the atmosphere, which acts like a prism, it slows down and causes the light to bend or refract towards the surface of the earth.
 
The white from the sun is made up of many different colors of light, all of which have a different wavelength. The wavelength (or color) of light affects how much it is refracted on entering the atmosphere, with red light refracted the most and blue least (as in rainbows).
 
Imagine the image of the sun as being made up of red, green and blue images. Light from the ‘red image’ will be refracted more than that from the green and blue.
 
So, the ‘red image’ will appear lower than the green, which will similarly appear lower than the blue. At sunset, or sunrise, this effect is intensified as light travels through a slightly thicker atmosphere.
 
As the sun disappears below the horizon, the ‘red image’ will disappear first and the blue last.
 
The atmosphere causes blue light to be scattered more than red or green – the reason why the sky appears blue – so light from the ‘green image’ … the ‘green flash’ … will normally be the last thing you see as the sun disappears below the horizon.
 
On very rare occasions, the atmosphere may be clear enough to allow some of the blue light to reach us and cause a ‘blue flash’ as the sun sets.
 
The phenomenon lasts only a fraction of a second, so unless you know where to look and when, the chances of seeing one are very slim. Viewing conditions need to be just right, too.
 
Watching the sun set over an ocean horizon on a clear evening creates optimal viewing conditions.
 
Your line of sight should be almost parallel to the horizon and you need to really concentrate at the top edge of the sun as it is about 98% set.
 
If you are lucky, you will see the top edge of the sun turn green for a brief moment, before disappearing below the horizon.
 
Jules Verne’s 1882 novel “Le Rayon Vert” (The Green Ray) popularized the green flash, described as “a green which no artist could ever obtain on his palette, a green of which neither the varied tints of vegetation nor the shades of the most limpid sea could ever produce the like! If there is a green in Paradise, it cannot be but of this shade, which most surely is the true green of Hope”.
 
Be careful.  Even with the sun low in the sky, concentrated observation with the naked eye can cause damage to your eyesight.

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  • At sunset, the sky is often painted with an array of oranges, reds and yellows, and even some shades of pink. There are, however, occasions when a green flash appears above the solar disc for a second or so. One such occurrence was captured beautifully in this picture taken from Cerro Paranal, a 2600-metre-high mountain in the Chilean Atacama Desert, by ESO Photo Ambassador Gianluca Lombardi. Cerro Paranal is home to ESO’s Very Large Telescope. The green flash is a rather rare phenomenon; seeing such a transient event requires an unobstructed view of the setting (or rising) Sun and a very stable atmosphere. At Paranal the atmospheric conditions are just right for this, making the green flash a relatively common sight (see for example eso0812). But a double green flash such as this one is noteworthy even for Paranal. The green flash occurs because the Earth’s atmosphere works like a giant prism that bends and disperses the sunlight. This effect is particularly significant at sunrise and sunset when the solar rays go through more of the lower, denser layers of the atmosphere. Shorter wavelength blue and green light from the Sun is bent more than longer wavelength orange and red, so it appears slightly higher in the sky than orange or red rays from the point of view of an observer. When the Sun is close to the horizon and conditions are just right, a mirage effect related to the temperature gradient in the atmosphere can magnify the dispersion — the separation of colours — and produce the elusive green flash. A blue flash is almost never seen as the blue light is scattered by molecules and particles in the dense blanket of air towards the horizon. The mirage can also distort the shape of the Sun and that of the flash. We see two bands of green light in this image because the weather conditions created two alternating cold and warm layers of air in the atmosphere. This stunning photo was taken by ESO Photo Ambassador Gianluca Lombardi on 28 March 2011. The phenomenon was captured on camera as the Sun was setting on a sea of clouds below Cerro Paranal.

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Bailey House

The Bailey House was originally built as a parsonage for the ministers of the Wailuku Church.  The house is a combination of four structures built between 1835 and 1850.

The original portion was built in 1833 by Reverend Jonathan Green and is a two-story lava stone structure measuring approximately 30’ x 20’ with 20” thick walls.  A high pitched gable roof is covered with wood shingles.

At about the same time (1833), a single story lava stone cookhouse was constructed slightly uphill from the living area.  The single room is dominated by a large fireplace and oven flush with the interior wall.  The mass of the oven structure projects beyond the north wall.

The lower floor is built partially into the side of a hill with the walls retaining the earth on the uphill side.

In 1837 a single story lava stone structure with a basement was built for Miss Ogden, a teacher for the girls’ school in Wailuku.

Edward Bailey was a Protestant missionary from Holden, Massachusetts.  Prior to their marriage, Edward attended Amherst College and Caroline was a tailoress.

He and his wife Caroline Hubbard Bailey sailed from Boston on the barq, ‘Mary Frazier,’ on December 14, 1836.  They arrived in Honolulu April 9, 1837.

They were married only two weeks when they left Massachusetts.  Caroline was pregnant with son Edward upon their arrival in Hawaii.

Not long after their arrival, the couple was transferred to Wailuku to head the Wailuku Female Seminary in 1837.  The Seminary was the counterpart to the boy’s institution at Lahainaluna, serving some 50 girls age five to 12.

Seminary girls learned the traditional lessons in Hawaiian and were also taught to sew, spin and crochet. They also would work an hour a day in their own garden plots.

Bailey worked at the Wailuku Female Seminary in Maui from 1840 until its closure in 1849.  At that time he purchased a fee simple title to the Girls’ boarding school, the house and lot, and began his interest in what was to become Wailuku Sugar Company.

As noted by Mary Brewster in 1847, “Mr. Bailey has a very fine house with a beautiful garden handsomely laid and of considerable extent. T he most beautiful place I have ever seen.”

“All kinds of trees such as the fig, banana, guava, citron and a number of our own species which he is trying to cultivate. Flowers of all kinds which will grow here with exotics, vines, and shrubs, all displaying much taste in their arrangements.”

Because of his growing family, Bailey added two rooms upstairs in 1850 and had the entire house re-roofed.

After the seminary closed, he built the still-standing Ka’ahumanu Church in Wailuku and operated a small sugar plantation.  He designed and built a water powered mill for sugar and wheat in Wailuku.  The business developed into the Wailuku Sugar Company.  He was also an active participant in starting the Haiku Sugar Company.

Over his years in Hawaiʻi, Bailey taught music.  He aided in the practice of medicine, although he had no medical degree.  He created the girls school in Makawao known as Maunaʻolu Seminary.

He surveyed native kuleana and built the first bridge over the Wailuku River.  He designed the Lahainaluna token currency.

He began painting about 1865, at the age of 51, without any formal instruction; he was the most accomplished of the missionary artists in Hawaii.  He painted landscapes in oil.

Edward and Caroline lived in their Wailuku home for 50-years, then they and their sons (other than Edward Jr. who was married to Emily Kania) moved to California in 1885, possibly 1888.

At the time of his death in 1903 Edward Sr. was the oldest living missionary sent to Hawaii between 1820 – 1850 by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions .

The Bailey House is now the Maui Historical Society’s Hale Hō‘ike‘ike (House of Display) showcasing Hawaiian history and culture, as well as paintings and furnishings from nineteenth-century Maui.

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