San Francisco - Telegraph Hill and Coit Tower

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We'll begin this tour at the corner of Union and Stockton streets. Those wary of the steep climb to Coit Tower should stay put and wait for the #39 Coit bus. If you feel you're in good shape, however, set out on foot on Stockton (stopping, if you want, to carbo-load at the Liguria Bakery) and turn right on Filbert. At Grant Avenue, turn left, and trudge up the steep hill to Greenwich. Turn right on Greenwich, head up the hill and take the steps around the palm garden at the top of the street to Coit Tower Boulevard. Pause for breath.

Carefully cross the street (there's no crosswalk here) and continue up the rocky steps on the other side. Follow the path past Pioneer Park to Coit Tower. Once you've met your friends who've taken the #39, walk around the parking plaza, taking in the spectacular panorama from Nob Hill past the Golden Gate, Alcatraz, and the East Bay towards San Jose and the south. The large statue of Christopher Columbus in the middle of the plaza stands on the site of mechanized semaphore flags that once sent messages to ships in the Bay, giving Telegraph Hill its name.

Coit Tower was dedicated in 1932, part of the bequest of Lillie Hitchcock Coit, and a memorial to her beloved San Francisco firemen. Since being pulled out of a burning building as a child by the men of Knickerbocker Company No. 5, the wild and irrepressible Coit bore an abiding affection for firemen. She often rode with them on their busy rounds to the fires that were so frequent in Barbary Coast San Francisco, her hair streaming in the wind as she hung on to the engine.

The tower's 210-foot height is boosted by the 220-foot hill on which it sits, and can easily be seen from almost any point on the Bay. Designed in an art deco-style by the same architect who created City Hall and the Opera House, debate rages to this day about whether or not Coit Tower is supposed to look like a fire hose.

Inside the lobby are restored murals created under the aegis of Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration, depicting the industrial, agricultural, and intellectual history of California. Supervised by painter Diego Rivera, these are masterpieces of the social realist school. (See if you can pick out The Daily Worker and other leftist publications at a newsstand in one of the frames.) The USD3 elevator ride to the top of the Tower will give you an even more panoramic panorama of San Francisco and its surroundings, including a great view of the Financial District and Union Square.

Once back on ground level, walk back down Coit Tower Boulevard to Filbert Street and the top of the Filbert Steps. Steps were made necessary on the eastern face of Telegraph Hill when large chunks of the hillside were blasted away for landfill to create what is now much of the Embarcadero, Financial District, and Fisherman's Wharf. Pretty chrysanthemum bushes crowd the upper Filbert Steps in the spring and summer. Cross Montgomery Street and pause a moment in front of the apartment building at 1360 Montgomery. Its handsome, art-deco bas-relief treatment commemorates the 1939-40 Golden Gate International Exposition. This building has been featured in at least two films: the Bogart-Bacall classic Dark Passage, and, more recently, the forgettable Nine Months.

Continue down the steps onto the boardwalk of the Grace Marchand Gardens, some of the most entrancing hillside landscaping in the world. An incongruous flock of green parrots, South American conures that descended from a group of domesticated escapees, screech from the trees overhead.

To your left are clapboard cottages built by 19th-century sea captains. Stroll down tiny Darrell Place or jewel-like Napier Lane. The Filbert steps become reassuring steel and concrete as they traverse the rugged bottom of the hill, until finally you find yourself at sea level at Sansome Street, a stone's throw from the Green Street studio where Philo Farnsworth invented television. Turn right and walk two blocks to Green to see the plaque, on your right, commemorating his achievement, and then head east on Green into Levi's Plaza Park, corporate headquarters of the Levi-Strauss Corporation. Treat yourself to lunch or dinner at Il Fornaio, one of The City's better Italian restaurants.







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Coit Tower


Towering view
 1 Telegraph Hill Boulevard
San Francisco, CA 94133
+1 415 362 0808
http://sanfrancisco.lovetoknow.com/wiki/Coit_Tower
Coit Tower
Alcatraz Island


Alcatraz Island
 Pier 33
The Embarcadero & Bay St
San Francisco, CA 94123
415-981-7625 (Tickets) / 415-561-4900 (Information)
http://www.nps.gov/alcatraz/
Alcatraz Island
Liguria Bakery


Italian staple
 1700 Stockton Street
San Francisco, CA 94133
+1 415 421 3786
Liguria Bakery
Fisherman's Wharf


Tourist Hot Spot
 The Embarcadero
(between Hyde and Powell streets)
San Francisco, CA 94133
+1 415 956 3493 / +1 415 974 6900
http://www.fishermanswharf.org/
Fisherman's Wharf
Embarcadero Center


Shopping, dining, and entertainment
 Sacramento and Drumm Streets
San Francisco, CA 94111
+1 415 772 0700
http://www.embarcaderocenter.com/ec
Embarcadero Center
Levi's Plaza Park


By the Embarcadero
 1160 Battery Street
San Francisco, CA 94111
Levi's Plaza Park
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