Wooden stairways cut between small cottages and terraced gardens, past the steps Dark Passage climbed in 1947.
What Telegraph Hill looks like
Telegraph Hill's east slope has no through road for cars. The Filbert and Greenwich Steps descend it instead, close to 400 wooden treads broken by landings and narrow dead end lanes. runs off the Filbert Steps as its own paved walk between house fronts, barely wide enough for one person.
Wood frame cottages from before 1870 stand beside one to three storey buildings in wood shingle, stucco and brick. Most of the cottages are vernacular Gothic Revival in style, with a few later Art Moderne and International Style buildings mixed between them. The Malloch Building, an Art Moderne block at Montgomery and Filbert, went up in 1936. A Richard Neutra house on Calhoun Terrace followed in 1939.
The Grace Marchant Garden runs along the Filbert Steps in terraces planted since 1949, with retaining walls holding back the hillside on both sides of the treads. Darrell Place, a dead end lane off the steps, is reached by its own short flight of stairs.
Montgomery and Alta Streets were paved in 1931, and Union and Calhoun followed in 1939 and 1940. From the top of the hill, stands 210 feet over Pioneer Park. The piers and container cranes of the waterfront are visible down the slope across the bay.
Shot in Telegraph Hill
For Dark Passage in 1947, Humphrey Bogart's Vincent Parry climbs the Filbert Street Steps between Sansome and Montgomery after plastic surgery, with the Malloch Building playing his accomplice's apartment at Montgomery and Filbert. Invasion of the Body Snatchers used the same stairway system in 1978, running its pod people chase past Napier Lane and down the steps toward the Embarcadero.
Dark Passage, 1947
The Filbert Street Steps
Vincent Parry climbs these steps after his surgery, pausing on the landings on his way up from the waterfront. The Malloch Building, a block away at Montgomery and Filbert, played the exterior of his accomplice Irene Jansen's apartment building. Street View
What Telegraph Hill can double for
Cerro Alegre in Valparaíso, Chile
Cerro Alegre's wood frame houses climb a steep hillside on stairways with no car access, close to Telegraph Hill's own scale and slope. Valparaíso's corrugated metal roofs and brighter paint schemes are the giveaway in a wide shot, so a tighter frame on the stairway itself holds the match best. Try searching wood frame hillside stairway houses now.
Alfama's narrow lanes climb the hill on stone steps, with small dwelling entrances opening straight onto the stairway the way Telegraph Hill's cottages do. Alfama's walls are painted stucco and glazed tile rather than wood siding, so a tight frame on the narrow stone steps holds the match better than a wide view of the facades. Try searching narrow stone steps now.
Sheung Wan in Hong Kong
Ladder Street in Sheung Wan climbs the hill as a stepped pedestrian street with small shopfronts and flats on both sides and no car access. The concrete steps and shop signage make this a city stair rather than a garden one, so it is a better match for Telegraph Hill's stairways than for its cottages and greenery. Try searching stepped pedestrian street now.
