ByCraig T. Kojima, Star-Bulletin
Founders Fountain foundered.
The point of a memorial is to help people remember. Certainly, when Conrad von Hamm dedicated the "Founders Fountain" in 1959, on the corner of Kapiolani Boulevard and Clayton Street, he thought he'd laid the cornerstone for future generations of Von Hamm-Young Company customers. A monumental slab
of historyThe founders were von Hamm and the father-and-son team of Alexander and Archibald Young, and their company was founded in 1899. Von Hamm, a German immigrant who made his home in Hawaii, also married the boss' daughter - and outlived all the Youngs.
Von Hamm-Young was a merchandising and service conglomerate. The company brought the first cars, refrigerators, gasoline stations and radios to the islands, sold dry goods and drugs, and insurance.
The "Founders Fountain" was built to commemorate this lifetime of capitalist fervor. It was designed by Vladimir Ossipoff in a Bauhausian, concrete-slab style, and echoes the Von Hamm-Young showroom across the street.
Today, the VH-Y showroom windows have been slabbed over, and the building is operated by NCR. The fountain is orphaned on its little triangle of land, and often serves as a sleeping shelter to the homeless. Water has not run in it in years, and the rear of the structure is collapsing.
Having lived to 95, von Hamm passed away in 1965, when the fountain still provided a cool oasis on Kapiolani. Von Hamm-Young later became known as THC, or The Hawaii Corporation.
Long after von Hamm was dead, Randolph Crossley put THC back on the front pages. There are no monuments to Crossley, although a number of people would still like to see his head on a pike.
By Burl Burlingame