Hotel Union Square is located at 114 Powell Street in San Francisco, California. It was built in 1908, had a speakeasy in the basement during the Prohibition Era, and Dashiell Hammett was a patron.
Hotel Union Square is located at 114 Powell Street in San Francisco, California. It was built in 1908, had a speakeasy in the basement during the Prohibition Era, and Dashiell Hammett was a patron.
The hotel was built in 1908 as the Golden West Hotel, for the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition. [1] During the Prohibition Era, a 10,000 square feet (930 m2) speakeasy called The Golden Bubble was located below the hotel. [2] [3] The original terrazzo floors and wallpaper still remain in what is now used as a storage area. In 1935, Egyptian-style mosaics by Helen Bell Bruton were added in the entryway. [1]
In the 1950s, the hotel was renamed the Golden State Hotel. [1] Personality Hotels purchased the building in the early 1980s and in 1985 reopened it after refurbishment as Hotel Union Square. [4] It was extensively renovated in 2008, when a Dashiell Hammett Suite was created in Room 505. [5] The interior design is by Colum McCartan, along with Lisa Sayed, partner of the hotel interior design company Sisterhood of the Traveling Hotels, who designed the Ring In the Kids Suite. Lisa Compagno designed the Dashiell Hammett Suite. There are 131 guest rooms and suites.
Dashiell Hammett and Lillian Hellman may have conducted much of their love affair at the hotel, [6] and he booked his bride-to-be Josephine Dolan into a suite there on the night before their 1921 wedding. [5]
The hotel is reputedly haunted, particularly Room 207. Some attribute a ghost in that room to Hellman. [6]
The Maltese Falcon is a 1930 detective novel by American writer Dashiell Hammett, originally serialized in the magazine Black Mask beginning with the September 1929 issue. The story is told entirely in external third-person narrative; there is no description whatsoever of any character's thoughts or feelings, only what they say and do, and how they look. The novel has been adapted several times for the cinema.
Watch on the Rhine is a 1943 American drama film directed by Herman Shumlin and starring Bette Davis and Paul Lukas. The screenplay by Dashiell Hammett is based on the 1941 play Watch on the Rhine by Lillian Hellman. Watch on the Rhine was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and Paul Lukas won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Kurt Muller, a German-born anti-fascist in this film.
Samuel Dashiell Hammett was an American writer of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. He was also a screenwriter and political activist. Among the characters he created are Sam Spade, Nick and Nora Charles, The Continental Op and the comic strip character Secret Agent X-9.
Nick and Nora Charles are fictional characters created by Dashiell Hammett in his novel The Thin Man. The characters were later adapted for film in a series of films between 1934 and 1947; for radio from 1941 to 1950; for television from 1957 through 1959; as a Broadway musical in 1991; and as a stage play in 2009.
Julia is a 1977 American WWII drama film directed by Fred Zinnemann, from a screenplay by Alvin Sargent. It is based on a chapter from Lillian Hellman's 1973 book Pentimento about the author's relationship with a lifelong friend, Julia, who fought against the Nazis in the years prior to World War II. The film stars Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, Jason Robards, Hal Holbrook, Rosemary Murphy, Maximilian Schell, and Meryl Streep in her film debut.
The Thin Man (1934) is a detective novel by Dashiell Hammett, originally published in a condensed version in the December 1933 issue of Redbook. It appeared in book form the following month. A film series followed, featuring the main characters Nick and Nora Charles, and Hammett was hired to provide scripts for the first two.
Moss Beach Distillery is a restaurant in Moss Beach, California, located on a cliff which overlooks the Pacific Ocean. It is officially designated as a California Point of Historical Interest. Originally established in 1927 as a speakeasy, it converted into a successful restaurant after the repeal of Prohibition in 1933.
The Tenderloin is a neighborhood in downtown San Francisco, in the flatlands on the southern slope of Nob Hill, situated between the Union Square shopping district to the northeast and the Civic Center office district to the southwest. Encompassing about 50 square blocks, it is historically bounded on the north by Geary Street, on the east by Mason Street, on the south by Market Street and on the west by Van Ness Avenue. The northern boundary with Lower Nob Hill has historically been set at Geary Boulevard.
The Hilton San Francisco Union Square is a skyscraper hotel located several blocks south-west of Union Square in San Francisco, California. Opened in 1964, the 18-story, 1200-room original building was known as a "motel within a hotel", allowing guests to park directly next to their upper-story rooms. Filling an entire city block, it remains one of the tallest structures representing Brutalist architecture, though it has been extensively altered since its construction. A second 46-story tower was added in 1971, while a third smaller 23-story connecting tower was completed in 1987. Renovated in 2017, it is the largest hotel on the West Coast, with 1,921 rooms.
The Dunsmuir House and Gardens is located in Oakland, California on a 50-acre (200,000 m2) site. The Dunsmuir House has a neoclassical-revival architectural style and is listed in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. It is now used primarily for weddings, receptions, business gatherings and historical reenactment events.
The Westin St. Francis, formerly known as St. Francis Hotel, is a hotel located on Powell and Geary Streets in San Francisco, adjacent to the whole western edge of Union Square. The two 12-story south wings of the hotel were built in 1904, and the double-width north wing was completed in 1913, initially as apartments for permanent guests. This section is referred to as the Landmark Building on the hotel's website. The 32-story, 120 m (390 ft) tower to the rear, referred to as the Tower Building, which was completed in 1972, features exterior glass elevators that offer panoramic views of the bay and the square below, making the St. Francis one of the largest hotels in the city, with more than 1,254 rooms and suites.
The Oxford Hotel is a historic building in Denver, Colorado, which was designed by early Denver architect Frank Edbrooke, and built in 1891. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. The Cruise Room is a hotel bar with historic art deco interior, that was operated as an illicit speakeasy.
Bimbo's 365 Club, also known as Bimbo's 365, is an entertainment club located at 1025 Columbus Avenue in San Francisco. It specializes in live rock and jazz shows. The location is one of San Francisco's oldest nightclub sites, and has operated under two names with a series of owners. The building started as Bal Tabarin in 1931, the same year that the 365 Club started at 365 Market Street. The two locations under separate ownership consolidated in 1951 to one location owned by Agostino "Bimbo" Giuntoli.
The Congress Plaza Hotel is a hotel on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, across from Grant Park. Opened by R.H. Southgate just before the 1893 World’s Fair, the hotel has hosted numerous US Presidents and a wide range of political and cultural events. The hotel is frequently claimed to be one of the most haunted buildings in Chicago.
There are many reportedly haunted locations in San Francisco, California. According to ghost hunters, over 100 sites in the San Francisco Bay Area are reported to be haunted.
Walter Danforth Bliss (1874-1956) was an American architect from California. Many of his buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
A sliding bookcase is a wooden shelf or cabinet for bound volumes that is designed to move on rollers, a track, hinges, or another mechanism and is typically used to hide the presence of a secret room or space. Sliding bookcases were used in the United States during prohibition to hide rooms or spaces containing liquor. They have also been used to conceal entrances to speakeasy bars and marijuana-growing operations. People have hidden in secret rooms concealed by sliding bookcases to escape detection from a government or police force.
The Beacon Grand is a historic 416-room hotel in San Francisco, California, opened in 1928 as the Sir Francis Drake Hotel. It is located at the corner of Sutter and Powell Streets adjacent to Union Square.
Helen Bell Bruton was an American printmaker, mosaic muralist and painter.
Anne Esther Bruton, known professionally as Esther Bruton, was an American artist whose activities included painting, printmaking, mosaics, ceramics, and commercial art.
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