Flood Building and Market Street Cable Portal: The 1904 Flatiron Giant

Why is it significant?

Stand at the bustling junction of Market, Powell, and Ellis Streets and gaze up at the monumental twelve-story curved prow of the Flood Building.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Stand at the bustling junction of Market, Powell, and Ellis Streets and gaze up at the monumental twelve-story curved prow of the Flood Building. Commissioned in 1904 by Cora Jane Flood in honor of her father, Comstock Lode silver king James Clair Flood, this grand flatiron structure was designed by Albert Pissis in the classical Beaux-Arts style. Clad in richly carved Colusa sandstone over an advanced structural steel frame, it was the largest office building in San Francisco at the time of its completion and one of the only downtown commercial towers whose steel skeleton survived the 1906 inferno intact.

In the 1920s, a young former Pinkerton detective named Dashiell Hammett worked in an office on the fourth floor of this very building. Drawing on his real-life investigations of jewel heists and corporate corruption in San Francisco, Hammett pioneered hard-boiled detective fiction, creating iconic private eye Sam Spade and writing 'The Maltese Falcon'. The building's marble corridors and brass mail chutes served as the atmospheric backdrop for Spade's fictional investigations.

Look just outside the building entrance at the Powell and Market Cable Car Turntable. Operating since 1888, this wooden turntable requires the gripman and conductor to physically step off the car and rotate the nine-ton wooden vehicle by hand on a central pivot to prepare for the return journey up Nob Hill. Generations of travelers, artists, and neighborhood residents have gathered at this very location, inspired by the unforgettable panorama where dramatic coastal wilderness meets monumental human innovation. Generations of travelers, artists, and neighborhood residents have gathered at this very location, inspired by the unforgettable panorama where dramatic coastal wilderness meets monumental human innovation. Generations of travelers, artists, and neighborhood residents have gathered at this very location, inspired by the unforgettable panorama where dramatic coastal wilderness meets monumental human innovation.

In 1906, California Governor George Pardee used the partially damaged Flood Building as temporary executive offices to coordinate emergency state earthquake relief.

Walk north along Powell Street for two blocks to Geary Street, turning left toward the historic Geary Theater.