Coit Tower ( ; also known as Coit Memorial Tower) is a tower in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California, overlooking the city and San Francisco Bay. The tower, in the city's Pioneer Park, was built between 1932 and 1933 using Lillie Hitchcock Coit's bequest to beautify the city of San Francisco. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 29, 2008. A concrete relief of a phoenix by sculptor Robert Boardman Howard is placed above the main entrance. It was commissioned by the architect and cast as part of the building.

Although an apocryphal story claims that the tower was designed to resemble a fire hose nozzle due to Coit's affinity with the San Francisco firefighters of the day, the resemblance is coincidental.

History

thumb|left|upright=1.2|Coit Tower in 2008, looking WSW

Telegraph Hill, the tower's location, has been described as "the most optimal 360 degree viewing point to the San Francisco Bay and five surrounding counties."

thumb|upright=1.2|[[Robert Boardman Howard's cast concrete relief of a phoenix is placed above the main entrance to the tower.]]

Coit's fortune funded the monument four years following her death in 1929. She had a special relationship with the city's firefighters. At the age of fifteen she witnessed the Knickerbocker Engine Co. No. 5 in response to a fire call up on Telegraph Hill when they were shorthanded; she threw her school books to the ground and pitched in to help, calling out to other bystanders to help get the engine up the hill to the fire, to get the first water onto the blaze. After that Coit became the Engine Co. mascot and could barely be constrained by her parents from jumping into action at the sound of every fire bell. She frequently rode with the Knickerbocker Engine Co. 5, especially in street parades and celebrations in which the Engine Co. participated. Through her youth and adulthood Coit was recognized as an honorary firefighter.

In her will she specified that one third of her fortune, amounting to $118,000, "be expended in an appropriate manner for the purpose of adding to the beauty of the city which I have always loved." Two memorials were built in her name. One was Coit Tower, and the other was a sculpture depicting three firemen, one of them carrying a woman in his arms.

The San Francisco County Board of Supervisors proposed that Coit's bequest be used for a road at Lake Merced. This proposal brought disapproval from the estate's executors, who expressed a desire that the county find "ways and means of expending this money on a memorial that in itself would be an entity and not a unit of public development".

Coit Tower was listed as a San Francisco Designated Landmark in 1984

In 2012, residents of the city voted in favor of Proposition B, the Coit Tower Protection Initiative, that requires the city to pay for the preservation of the murals and the building. The San Francisco Arts Commission ordered the removal of the Statue of Christopher Columbus that had stood outside the entrance of the tower since 1957, following numerous other removals of controversial statues during the George Floyd protests that began in May 2020, and it was removed on June 18, 2020.

Architecture

Brown's competition design envisioned a restaurant in the tower, which was changed to an exhibition area in the final version. The design uses three nesting concrete cylinders, the outermost a tapering fluted shaft that supports the viewing platform. An intermediate shaft contains a stairway, and an inner shaft houses the elevator. The observation deck is below the top, with an arcade and skylights above it. A rotunda at the base houses display space and a gift shop.

Mural project

{|class="wikitable sortable" style="font-size:90%;text-align:center;"

|+frameless|upright=1.5|alt=Coit Tower rotunda floor plan and murals, numbered 1 through 20<br/>Coit Tower rotunda layout and murals

! colspan=2 | No.

! class="unsortable" style="width:7em;" | Thumbnail !! Name !! Artist !! Size (H×W) !! class="unsortable;" | Notes !! class="unsortable;" | Refs.

|-

| colspan=8 style="font-size:150%;background:#eee;" data-sort-value="zzz" | Rotunda murals

|-

! rowspan=2 style="background:#f00;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | 1

! style="background:#f00;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | a

| frameless|upright=0.5

| Animal Force || rowspan=2 data-sort-value="Boynton" | Ray Boynton || rowspan=2 | (aggregate)

| rowspan=2 style="text-align:left;" | First mural visible as visitors enter the rotunda; left and right panels are separated by "Old Man Weather" over the entrance to the elevator lobby. Animal Force has an alcove with a bronze plaque and commemorative dates; this panel depicts the use of animals in agriculture. Machine Force shows construction, transportation, and power production machines.

| rowspan=2 |

|-

! style="background:#f00;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | b

| frameless|upright=0.5

| Machine Force

|-

! colspan=2 style="background:#f80;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | 2

| frameless|upright=0.67

| California Industrial Scenes || data-sort-value="Howard" | John Langley Howard ||

| style="text-align:left;" | Industrial scenes, including construction, oil recovery, and mining; ironic points include use of hand tools and a broken-down car.

|

|-

! colspan=2 style="background:#ff0;color:#000;font-size:220%;" | 3

| frameless|upright=0.28

| Railroad and Shipping || data-sort-value="Hesthal" | William Hesthal ||

| style="text-align:left;" | Train and ship, used to transport goods; a narrow window interrupts the center of the panel.

|

|-

! rowspan=2 style="background:#080;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | 4

! style="background:#080;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | a

| frameless|upright=0.11

| Steelworker || rowspan=2 data-sort-value="Wight" | Clifford Wight || rowspan=2 | (each)

| rowspan=2 style="text-align:left;" | Straddles windows on the west wall; originally linked by a bridge with controversial symbols depicting capitalism and communism, but these elements were removed before 1934.

| rowspan=2 |

|-

! style="background:#080;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | b

| frameless|upright=0.11

| Surveyor

|-

! colspan=2 style="background:#00f;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | 5

| frameless|upright=1

| Industries of California || data-sort-value="Stackpole" | Ralph Stackpole ||

| style="text-align:left;" | Industrial scenes, including food production and a chemical laboratory. Depicts several artists, including Tom Lehman (pouring chemicals), William Hesthal (bending over table in checked shirt), and Helen Clement Mills (part of packing crew).

|

|-

! colspan=2 style="background:#80f;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | 6

| frameless|upright=0.28

| Newsgathering || data-sort-value="Scheuer" | Suzanne Scheuer and Hebe Daum ||

| style="text-align:left;" | Newspaper offices; the window ledge has a replica of the front page of the San Francisco Chronicle, celebrating the completion of the murals.

|

|-

! colspan=2 style="background:#f00;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | 7

| frameless|upright=0.28

| Library || data-sort-value="Zakheim" | Bernard Zakheim ||

| style="text-align:left;" | Public library; individual portraits depict numerous artists, family, and friends alongside current news topics.

|

|-

! rowspan=2 style="background:#f80;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | 8

! style="background:#f80;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | a

| frameless|upright=0.11

| Scientist-Inventor || rowspan=2 data-sort-value="Dean" | Harold Mallette Dean || rowspan=2 | (each)

| rowspan=2 style="text-align:left;" | Straddles windows on the south wall; stockbroker may depict Amadeo Giannini, while scientist stands in front of Lick Observatory.

| rowspan=2 |

|-

! style="background:#f80;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | b

| frameless|upright=0.11

| Stockbroker

|-

! colspan=2 style="background:#ff0;color:#000;font-size:220%;" | 9

| frameless|upright=1

| City Life || data-sort-value="Arnautoff" | Victor Arnautoff ||

| style="text-align:left;" | Depicts busy street scenes in the Financial District of San Francisco, based on the corner of Montgomery and Washington.

|

|-

! colspan=2 style="background:#080;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | 10

| frameless|upright=0.28

| Banking and Law || data-sort-value="Harris" | George Albert Harris ||

| style="text-align:left;" | Depicts Federal Reserve Bank, Stock Exchange, and a law library.

|

|-

! colspan=2 style="background:#00f;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | 11

| frameless|upright=0.28

| Department Store || data-sort-value="Vidar" | Frede Vidar ||

| style="text-align:left;" | Contemporary department store interior, including soda fountain.

|

|-

! rowspan=2 style="background:#80f;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | 12

! style="background:#80f;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | a

| frameless|upright=0.11

| Cowboy || rowspan=2 data-sort-value="Wight" | Clifford Wight || rowspan=2 | (each)

| rowspan=2 style="text-align:left;" | Straddles windows on the east wall; farmer may depict Ralph Stackpole while cowboy may depict Wight.

| rowspan=2 |

|-

! colspan=2 style="background:#f00;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | 14

| frameless|upright=0.28

| Meat Industry || data-sort-value="Bertrand" | Ray Bertrand ||

| style="text-align:left;" | Slaughterhouse and meat packing operations.

|

|-

! colspan=2 style="background:#ff0;color:#000;font-size:220%;" | 15

| frameless|upright=0.75

| California Agricultural Industry || data-sort-value="Langdon" | Gordon Langdon and Helen Clement Mills ||

| style="text-align:left;" | Dairy and timber industries.

|

|-

! colspan=2 style="background:#000;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | 20

|

| Power || data-sort-value="Olmsted" | Frederick Olmsted Jr.||

| style="text-align:left;" | Transition piece flanked by industrial scenes, over rotunda entrance

|

|-

| colspan=8 style="font-size:150%;background:#eee;" data-sort-value="zzz" | Elevator lobby murals

|-

! colspan=2 style="background:#080;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | 16

| frameless|upright=0.3

| San Francisco Bay || data-sort-value="Oldfield" | Otis Oldfield ||

| style="text-align:left;" | Oil on canvas, depicts view from Telegraph Hill towards Berkeley.

|

|-

! colspan=2 style="background:#00f;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | 17

| frameless|upright=0.2

| San Francisco Bay, North || data-sort-value="Moya" | Jose Moya del Pino ||

| style="text-align:left;" | Oil on canvas, depicts view from Telegraph Hill towards Marin County, including Alcatraz Island.

|

|-

! rowspan=2 style="background:#80f;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | 18

! style="background:#80f;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | a

|

| rowspan=2 | Bay Area Hills || rowspan=2 data-sort-value="Cuneo" | Rinaldo Cuneo || rowspan=2 | (each)

| rowspan=2 style="text-align:left;" | Depicts agricultural scenes from the Santa Clara Valley and Berkeley Hills.

| rowspan=2 |

|-

! style="background:#80f;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | b

|

|-

! rowspan=2 style="background:#f00;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | 19

! style="background:#f00;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | a

| frameless|upright=0.3

| Bay Area Map || rowspan=2 data-sort-value="Oldfield" | Otis Oldfield || rowspan=2 | (each)

| rowspan=2 style="text-align:left;" | Installed in lunette spaces over doorways in elevator lobby.

| rowspan=2 |

|-

| colspan=8 style="font-size:150%;background:#eee;" data-sort-value="zzz" | Upper level murals

|-

! colspan=2 style="background:#ff0;color:#000;font-size:220%;" | 22

|

| Collegiate Sports || data-sort-value="Hall" | Parker Hall ||

| style="text-align:left;" | Includes depiction of The Big Game between California and Stanford

|

|-

! colspan=2 style="background:#080;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | 23

|

| Sports || data-sort-value="Terada" | Edward Terada ||

| style="text-align:left;" | Leisure sports, including golf and polo

|

|-

! colspan=2 style="background:#00f;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | 24

|frameless

| Children at Play || data-sort-value="Chesse" | Ralph Chessé ||

| style="text-align:left;" | Playground

|

|-

! colspan=2 style="background:#80f;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | 25

| frameless|upright=0.4

| Hunting in California || data-sort-value="Hamlin" | Edith Hamlin ||

| style="text-align:left;" | Ducks and deer

|

|-

! colspan=2 style="background:#f00;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | 26

|

| Outdoor Life || data-sort-value="Cunningham" | Ben Cunningham ||

| style="text-align:left;" | Picnickers, bathers, photographers, hikers

|

|-

! colspan=2 style="background:#f80;color:#fff;font-size:220%;" | 27

|

| Home Life || data-sort-value="Berlandina" | Jane Berlandina ||

| style="text-align:left;" | In a separate room, shows typical home life activities, including contract bridge, baking, music making, and newspaper reading

|

|}

thumb|right|upright=1.2|Detail from [[Ray Boynton's fresco Animal Force and Machine Force, crediting the Public Works of Art Project]]

The Coit Tower murals in the American Social Realism style formed the pilot project of the Public Works of Art Project, Victor Arnautoff, Jane Berlandina, Ray Bertrand, Ray Boynton, Ralph Chessé, Rinaldo Cuneo, Ben Cunningham, Mallette "Harold" Dean, Parker Hall, George Albert Harris, William Hesthal, John Langley Howard, Lucien Labaudt, Gordon Langdon, Jose Moya del Pino Otis Oldfield, Frederick Olmsted Jr., Suzanne Scheuer, Edward Terada, Frede Vidar, and Clifford Wight. Many were faculty and students of the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA).

These artists (chosen by Walter Heil, director of the de Young Museum, together with other officials) were each paid $25 to $45 per week to depict "aspects of life in California." The most well-known of them were assigned sections that were in size, while less famous artists were confined to . including the creating of the murals.<br/>(Bernard Zakheim, Library )

|File:Newsgathering by Suzanne Scheuer, detail - Coit Tower, San Francisco, CA - DSC04812.jpg

|Painted San Francisco Chronicle front page celebrates mural completion, April 1934.<br/>(Suzanne Scheuer, Newsgathering )

Themes

The artists were committed in varying degrees to racial equality and to leftist and Marxist political ideas, which are strongly expressed in the paintings. Bernard Zakheim's mural Library depicts fellow artist John Langley Howard crumpling a newspaper in his left hand as he reaches for a shelved copy of Karl Marx's Das Kapital (here spelled as Das Capital) with his right. Workers of all races are shown as equals, often in the heroic poses of Socialist realism, while well-dressed racially white members of the capitalist classes enjoy the fruit of their labor.

Victor Arnautoff's City Life includes the periodicals The New Masses and The Daily Worker in the scene's news stand rack.

John Langley Howard's mural California Industrial Scenes depicts an ethnically diverse Labor March as well as showing a destitute family panning for gold while a wealthy, heavily caricatured ensemble observes.

Stackpole's Industries of California was composed along the same lines as an early study of the destroyed Man at the Crossroads.

The youngest of the muralists, George Albert Harris, painted a mural called Banking and Law . In the mural, the world of finance is represented by the Federal Reserve Bank and a stock market ticker (in which stocks are shown as declining) and law is illustrated by a law library. Some of the book titles that appear in the law library, such as Civil, Penal, and Moral Codes, are legitimate, while others list fellow muralists as authors, in a joking or derogatory manner.

After Diego Rivera's Man at the Crossroads mural was destroyed by its Rockefeller Center patrons for the inclusion of an image of Lenin, the Coit Tower muralists protested, picketing the tower. Sympathy for Rivera led some artists to incorporate references to the Rivera incident; in Zakheim's Library panel , Stackpole is painted reading a newspaper headline announcing the destruction of Rivera's mural. above a crowd of workers. and again in 2014 through cleaning and touching up scratches, the murals in the spiral stairway exit to the observation platform (Powell Street by Lucien Labaudt) were not restored but durably painted over with epoxy surfacing.

Most of the murals are open for public viewing without charge during open hours, although there are ongoing negotiations by the Recreation and Parks Department of San Francisco to begin charging visitors a fee to enter the mural rotunda. The murals in the spiral stairway and second floor, normally closed to the public, are open for viewing through tours. Labaudt's Powell Street runs along both sides of the spiral staircase; the second-floor murals all carry recreational themes.

Since 2004 artist Ben Wood collaborated with other artists on large scale video projections onto the exterior of Coit Tower, in 2004, 2006, 2008 & 2009.

Residents

There is a small unindexed apartment on the second floor of the building. The former army lieutenant William J. Bradley and his wife were paid to live in the apartment to guard the art and the building. It is not known when the couple moved out. During the 1980s, the city renovated the artwork in the building, and once again hired a permanent guardian, Tim Lillyquist, who became the third and last permanent resident of the tower.

Panorama

The tower, which stands atop Telegraph Hill in San Francisco's Pioneer Park, offers panoramic views of San Francisco that take in "crooked" Lombard Street, Nob Hill, Russian Hill, Twin Peaks, Aquatic Park, Pier 39, the Financial District and the Ferry Building, as well as San Francisco Bay itself including Angel Island, Alcatraz, Treasure Island, and the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges.

<gallery mode="packed" heights="160px">

File:TelegraphHillbyJohnCurley.jpg|A view of Telegraph Hill from a boat in the San Francisco Bay.

File:Coittower sf view.jpg|View of Coit Tower, Alcatraz, and Marin County from Downtown.

File:CoitTowerLookingFromGreenwichAndTelegraphHillBlvd.jpg|A closer photograph of Coit Tower from the parking lot

File:Coit Tower ascensore.JPG| Bay Area Map, mural by Otis Oldfield above the elevator

File:coit tower lombard street.JPG|View from Lombard Street

File:Coit Tower, San Francisco (south facing side).jpg|The south-facing side of Coit Tower

File:Sfcoit.jpg|Looking south from the tower

File:Looking up at Coit Tower.jpg|Looking up at the tower

File:Coit Tower at Night.JPG|Coit Tower at night, lit orange in recognition of the San Francisco Giants

File:San Francisco bay from coit tower.jpg|View of the bay from Coit Tower

File:Coit tower 2.jpg|As seen from below

File:Coit tower.jpg|Vertical view

File:17 30 085 coit tower.jpg|Detail of arches at the top of the tower

</gallery>

Coit Tower is a prominent landscape feature in Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 film, Vertigo, set largely in San Francisco. The character of Madeleine (Kim Novak) tells Scotty (James Stewart) that she has used the tower to orient herself to his apartment, as she did not know his street address; he responds this is the first time he had been grateful for the tower. Art director Henry Bumstead, who worked on Vertigo, noted that Hitchcock was adamant that Coit Tower should be seen in the film from the apartment of the lead character, portrayed by Stewart. When Bumstead asked why, Hitchcock said, "It's a phallic symbol."

Coit Tower is also featured in:

  • After the Thin Man (1936): the roundabout in front of the tower served as the driveway for Nick and Nora Charles' home in San Francisco.
  • The Strawberry Statement (1970)
  • The Enforcer (1976)
  • Tex Murphy series (1989–2014)
  • California's Gold Episode 12004 (1991-2012)
  • Just like Heaven (2005)
  • X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
  • History Detectives Episode 709 August 24, 2009
  • The Amazing Race 16 Leg 12 (2010)
  • Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore (2010)
  • San Andreas (2015)
  • Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)
  • Hero Inside Episode 9 January 7, 2024
  • Ironside ( 1967 to 1975): Most episodes include images in episodes' during the opening footage that serves as the episodes' establishing sequence

See also

  • 49-Mile Scenic Drive
  • History of San Francisco
  • List of San Francisco Designated Landmarks

References

  • Official website