Coit Tower

The tower on the summit of Telegraph Hill. San Francisco Recreation and Parks gives daily opening of 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. from April to October and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. from November to March, closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas Day and New Year's Day. An elevator runs to the observation deck and tickets are sold in the gift shop: $8 adult resident and $11 adult non-resident; $5 and $8 for seniors of 62 and over; $5 and $8 for youth of 12 to 17; $2 and $3 for children of 5 to 11; free for children of 4 and under. Docent mural tours take groups of at least four and not more than six, run about 30 to 40 minutes, and cost $10 a person for the full mural tour or $5 for the second floor only, with tickets bought at Coit Tower. It is San Francisco Landmark No. 165, designated in 1984, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008, reference number 07001468.

History

The tower was designed by the firm of Arthur Brown, Jr., architect of San Francisco's City Hall, and was completed in 1933. It is named for Lillie Hitchcock Coit, who died in 1929 leaving a bequest for the purpose of adding to the beauty of the city she had always loved; the same bequest funded a monument to the volunteer firefighters, in Washington Square. Artists employed by the Public Works of Art Project painted the murals in the base in 1934. San Francisco Recreation and Parks records the controversy that followed during the longshoremen's strike of that year, when some elements were painted over and the tower was padlocked for several months; the frescoes opened to the public in the fall of 1934. Telegraph Hill takes its name from a semaphore telegraph erected on its summit in 1850.

History

Visit

Featured in these guides

More in North Beach