Where the Maltese Falcon took flight
One of the great masters of noire was Dashiell Hammett (1894–1961), who lived a few blocks west of Union Square in a fourth-floor apartment above a coin laundry. He resided there from 1926 to 1929, during which time he wrote his signature detective novels Red Harvest, The Dain Curse, and The Maltese Falcon. The last led to the film that launched the careers of director John Huston and actor Humphrey Bogart, who played the hollow-hearted dick, Sam Spade.
Hammett, a tall, thin man with white hair, black eyebrows, and a patrician look, is best remembered for crime fiction, but was also a fervent political activist. His affiliations with a Communist party front group led to a brief federal prison sentence in 1951. A few years later he was among the blacklisted of Hollywood. Then illness set in: he had contracted tuberculosis while serving in World War I (he also served in World War II), a condition made worse by years of relentless drinking and chain-smoking. It was his beloved friend, lover, and political comrade, playwright Lillian Hellman who, in those last years, brought him his dinner and a martini each night, and walked him up to death’s door. She once called him a “Dostoyevsky sinner-saint.”
Info
Address 891 Post Street, San Francisco, CA, 94109 | Public Transport Bus: 2, 3 (Post St & Hyde St stop) | Hours Viewable from the street only| Tip For a delicious Louisiana-style bread pudding, duck into Hooker’s Sweet Treats at 442 Hyde Street.
The Post Street neighborhood that Hammett/Spade lived in was seedy back then. These days it’s more blanche than noire. Hammett and his fictional hard-boiled private eye lived in Apt. 401, which is located on the northwest corner of the building and is revisited periodically in the local press. It’s a small studio with a Murphy bed and a kitchen that’s the size of a small rug. The current tenant has apparently carefully recreated Hammett’s space.
To honor the 75th anniversary of The Maltese Falcon’s publication, a wall plaque was placed on the side of the gated entrance. It reads simply: “Home of Dashiell Hammett and Sam Spade.”
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