Walk A Crooked Mile - Stakeout
Then … Our stern narrator informs us that the subject of the painting was the view from the rear of Igor Braun’s third floor studio apartment in this building.
… and Now, the building today is just as it was more than 70 years ago; it’s in Nob Hill on the southeast corner of Clay and Mason Streets; Braun’s apartment number is 1087 Clay (map). (But, as CitySleuth pointed out earlier, the painting actually depicted buildings on Market Street, miles from here).
Then … The FBI agents decide to set up an observation post in the 3rd floor corner apartment above Bedayan’s grocery store at 1101 Clay. Visible along Clay Street are traces of the torn-up cable car tracks of the Sacramento-Clay Street line that had closed down six years earlier, in 1942.
… and Now, No more groceries here, 1101 Clay currently houses an upscale furniture and lighting business. (Trivia time - the corresponding corner, at 1153 Taylor just one block up the hill from here, is where Steve McQueen’s apartment was in Bullitt).
Then … Agents O’Hara and Grayson walk past the grocery up Mason from Clay, heading to their observation room set up in the uppermost protruding bay window seen above them.
… and Now, isn’t it good to see a part of town mostly unchanged after close to three-quarters of a century?
Then … This is the same shot viewed from behind showing them approaching 1055 Mason Street, on the right below the awning, where their observation room is. On the left at the top of the hill are the Fairmont and the Mark Hopkins hotels, two of the City’s icons, then, as now.
… and Now, this recent wide angle view along Mason shows where the stakeout and the staked-out were.
From the corner window O’Hara looks across to Igor Braun’s studio.
From here they spy on him as he works on a new painting.