Vintage Buildings and Structures of the Monumental City

Information by Dan Gibbs
Photos by Adam Paul

Originally intended to be a part of the Downtown Faces page, a few particularly noteworthy pieces of Baltimoreana must certainly garnish their own page, as you'll soon see why....

The place is the Continental Trust Building on the Southeast Corner of Baltimore and Calvert Streets, the artifacts concerned are a pair of EXTREMELY important gilded creatures. The Continental Trust, when it was built, was the city's tallest building, an honor it could claim for about ten years until the Emerson Tower was built (now better known as the "Bromo Seltzer Tower"). It was gutted, but not destroyed by the Great Fire of 1904.

Resting on the North entrance at Baltimore Street are two gold-gilded birds that could be mistaken for resting eagles, buty they're not, instead, they're falcons. Why, you may ask, is this significant? Because the Continental Trust building was also the location of the Baltimore office of the Pinkerton agency, which counted among its employees in the early '20s a gentleman from Southern Md., name of Dashiell Hammett--who would go on to write "The Maltese Falcon".

He must have spent a lot of time looking at those big gilded falcons every morning. One can only wonder the depth to the origin of his tale and it's title, but it's fascinating to take a couple minutes and just gawk at these ornaments, knowing just how long they've served as a source of inspiration.

While the exterior of the Continental Trust contains the two magnificent large Falcons shown on the left, the street facing second floor windows throughout the building contain a number of smaller Falcons as well.

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