San Francisco › Places and landmarks
Coit Tower
The slim concrete tower on top of Telegraph Hill, built in 1933 with the money of Lillie Hitchcock Coit.
Photo: Brooklyn Peach, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Coit Tower stands 64 metres tall on the top of Telegraph Hill, the hill where a semaphore once signalled to the town which ships were coming in through the Golden Gate. It was paid for by Lillie Hitchcock Coit, who left a third of her fortune in 1929 to make the city more beautiful, and was finished in 1933.
Lillie Coit loved the city’s firefighters and rode along with them as a girl, so many people say the tower looks like the nozzle of a fire hose. Its architects, Arthur Brown Jr. and Henry Howard, always said it was never meant to.
In the lobby, more than twenty artists painted murals of life in California in 1934, paid by the first federal art programme of the New Deal. A lift takes visitors to the top, with a view over the bay, the bridges and Alcatraz. Visit it in 3D ›
More in San Francisco
Transamerica PyramidThe white pyramid of the Financial District, 260 metres tall, the sign of San Francisco’s skyline since 1972.
Ferry BuildingThe ferry terminal at the foot of Market Street, with its clock tower after the Giralda of Seville, now a food hall.
Dragon GateThe gate into Chinatown on Grant Avenue at Bush Street, with green tiled roofs, dragons and two stone lions.
ChinatownThe oldest Chinatown in North America, along Grant Avenue and Stockton Street, with lanterns over the street.
Union SquareThe square of the big shops and hotels, named after the rallies for the Union before the Civil War.
Cable carsThe last cable cars in the world still running in city streets, pulled up the hills by a cable under the road.
Washington SquareThe green heart of North Beach, the Italian quarter, before the white church of Saints Peter and Paul.
City LightsThe bookshop of the Beat poets on Columbus Avenue, which published Allen Ginsberg’s Howl in 1956.
Golden Gate BridgeThe orange suspension bridge across the mouth of the bay, about five kilometres west of the game’s map.
Lombard StreetThe block of Lombard Street on Russian Hill with eight hairpin bends between flower beds, west of the game’s map.
AlcatrazThe rocky island in the bay, a federal prison from 1934 to 1963, built so that no one could swim away.
Sourdough breadThe sour, chewy bread of San Francisco, baked since the Gold Rush from a living dough.