The Midnight Story - Blown Alibi
Joe has a hard time tracking down Charlie Cuneo but fortuitously Malatesta invites him over for dinner. He relates how he and Malatesta played snooker together at the Vallejo Social Club until one a.m. on the night Father Tomasino was murdered. To Joe’s great relief his concern over Malatesta’s possible guilt is dispelled.
Then … But his precinct Sergeant arrives with disturbing new information. A detective had been following Cuneo that night on another case and witnessed him meet Malatesta at another club that backed onto the alley where the priest was killed then left for several hours leaving Malatesta behind. Cuneo had lied; Malatesta’s alibi was blown.
… and Now, they were at the cul-de-sac at the top of the Montgomery Steps, described in more detail in an earlier post.
Then … Joe asks to be dropped off; they pull up in front of a theater - its marquee is partly visible on the left.
… a vintage photo … This was the Palace Theater at Washington Square park at the junction of Columbus and Powell in North Beach (map). Here’s a c. 1970 image of the theater taken at a time when it was showing Chinese movies (the theater would later be renamed the Pagoda Palace). (The theater was briefly seen in Woody Allen’s 1972 movie Play It Again Sam).
… and Now, After being closed for years the theater was demolished in 2013 when it was deemed the ideal spot to extract the two boring machines that had dug the twin Central Subway tunnels extending the T-Third Street line from near the Giant’s ballpark into Chinatown. It is now a retail/condominium structure, retaining the blade sign in a nod to its past. More’s the pity it didn’t become a subway station (the tunnel had already been extended to here, right?).
Then … Across the park we see Saints Peter and Paul Church and Coit Tower.
… and Now, the same view below also shows the statue mostly obscured by the car, above. It’s a memorial to the Volunteer Fire Dept. of 1839-1866 who protected the city during several conflagrations before the first city fire department was created.
… in 1933 … The statue’s dedication ceremony was attended in force by firemen and residents with vivid memories of the city’s 1906 fire. The church is behind it, as too is Coit Tower which had been completed only months earlier.