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Coit Tower was built atop Telegraph Hill in 1933 at the bequest of Lillie Hitchcock Coit to beautify the City of San Francisco.[citation needed] Lillie bequeathed one-third of her estate to the City of San Francisco "to be expended in an appropriate manner for the purpose of adding to the beauty of the city which I have always loved."[citation needed]

Contrary to popular opinion, the tower was not designed to resemble a fire hose nozzle.[citation needed] This myth persists in part because of Lillie Hitchcock Coit's affinity with the San Francisco fire fighters of the day, in particular with Knickerbocker Engine Company Number 5. Although the architects claimed to have no design precedent in mind,[citation needed] during this time Europe saw the construction of aesthetically designed power stations that could be claimed as prototypes (e.g.: Battersea Power Station).

The art deco tower, 210 feet (64 meters) of unpainted reinforced concrete, was designed by architects Arthur Brown, Jr. and Henry Howard with murals by 26 different artists and numerous assistants.

The Coit Tower murals were carried out under the auspices of the Federal Art Project of the post-Great Depression Works Progress Administration. Two of the murals are of San Francisco Bay scenes painted by Spanish artist José Moya del Piño, who by then was a fulltime resident in the Bay Area. Most murals are done in fresco; the exceptions are one mural done in egg tempera (upstairs, in the last decorated room) and the works done in the elevator foyer, which are oil on canvas. While most of the murals have been restored, a small segment (the spiral stairway exit to the observation platform) was not restored but durably painted over with epoxy surfacing. These murals in particular contained very "leftist" political and social themes related to the Great Depression and socialist political movements. 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, normally closed to the public, are open for viewing on Saturday mornings at 11:00 am with a free San Francisco City Guides tour.

The tower, which stands atop Telegraph Hill in San Francisco's Pioneer Park, offers fantastic views of San Francisco including the Golden Gate Bridge, the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park ("Aquatic Park"), Alcatraz, Pier 39, Angel Island, Treasure Island, the Bay Bridge, Russian Hill, the Financial District, Lombard Street, and Nob Hill.

Telegraph Hill (elev 275 ft, 83 m) refers to a small district in San Francisco, California. Its main feature is Coit Tower, which stands atop the hill.

A much quieter neighborhood than adjoining North Beach and its bustling cafés and nightlife, Telegraph Hill is a residential area. Aside from Coit Tower, it is well-known for its gardens flowing down Filbert Street down to Levi's Plaza. The neighborhood is bounded by Vallejo Street to the south, Sansome Street to the east, Francisco Street to the north and Powell Street and Columbus Avenue to the west, where the southwestern corner of Telegraph Hill overlaps with the North Beach neighborhood.

Originally named Loma Alta ("High Hill") by the Spaniards, the hill was then familiarly known as Goat Hill by the early San Franciscans, and became the neighborhood of choice for many Irish immigrants. From 1825 through 1847, the area between Sansome and Battery, Broadway and Vallejo streets was used as a burial ground for foreign non-Catholic seamen.

The hill owes its current name to a semaphore, a windmill-like structure erected in September 1849, for the purpose of signaling to the rest of the city the nature of the ships entering the Golden Gate. Atop the newly-built house, the marine telegraph consisted of a pole with two raisable arms that could form various configurations, each corresponding a specific meaning: steamer, sailing boat, etc. The information was used by observers operating for financiers, merchants, wholesalers and speculators. As some of these information consumers would know the nature of the cargo carried by the ship they could quickly predict the upcoming (generally lower) local prices for those goods and commodities carried. Those who did not have advance information on the cargo might pay a too-high price from a merchant unloading his stock of a commodity — a price that was about to drop. On October 18, 1850, the ship Oregon signaled to the hill as it was entering the Golden Gate the news of California's recently acquired statehood.

Sailing ships brought cargo to San Francisco, but needed ballast when leaving. Rocks for ballast were quarried from the bay side of Telegraph Hill. Exposed rock from this quarrying is still visible from the Filbert Steps and from Broadway, where there was a large landslide on February 27, 2007 that damaged property and forced the evacuation of many residents.

A redundant station was built at Point Lobos in 1853. However, with the advent of the electrical telegraph in 1862, the system quickly became obsolete and was eventually dismantled, but the hill and its surrounding neighborhood have retained the name of Telegraph Hill.

In the 1920s, Telegraph Hill became with North Beach a destination for poets and bohemian intellectuals, dreaming of turning it into a West Coast West Village.

Source: Wikipedia