The tour on Sunday September 4 — one down, three more Sundays to go this month — brought forth a new development in the on-going saga of Dashiell Hammett Street. In the last week or two the easement of the alley into Bush Street has been revamped, and as part of the polishing the name “Dashiell Hammett” has been etched into fresh concrete. People on the tour may recall that the sidewalk previously featured the name “Monroe” — the earlier name for this one block long street — in the concrete.
No more. The name Monroe at this moment remains only as a footnote in the street sign on the top of the block at Pine.
If you look at the area in front of my feet in the photo taken on a tour conducted on July 23, you may be able to make out the old Monroe etching — you’ll have no trouble seeing the spray-painted marks made by the construction crew as they planned out this changeup.
And am I ever glad someone figured out how to spell Hammett’s name before they dug it into concrete that’s likely to sit unchanged for decades!
What else? Oh, yeah. The cigarette butts in the photo above — on some other street they might be considered litter. On a street named after the creator of Sam Spade, they’re more like a votive offering.
