Coit Tower

Standing tall atop Telegraph Hill and looking out over the Embarcadero, Fisherman’s Wharf and the Bay, Coit Tower is one of the most recognizable symbols of San Francisco. Featured in countless movie shots and postcards, it’s familiar to people all over the globe as one of the landmarks of the city, but what exactly is it, and who exactly was Coit?

The tower is named for Elizabeth “Lillie” Hitchcock Coit, who moved from New York to San Francisco, not far from where her tower now stands, with her mother and father, Charles Hitchcock, who was a army surgeon and businessman. Lillie was known as an eccentric tom boy who loved to chase fire trucks around town to fires, of which there were many in the days of all wooden structures, open flames and no safety codes. After helping out in one particular fire near her home on Telegraph Hill, she was made the mascot of the Knickerbocker Engine No. 5 and a honorary firefighter.

Find out more on the history of Coit Tower and Lillie Hitchcock Coit on this week’s episode here:

In 1861, she married wealthy businessman and board member of the San Francisco Stock Exchange B. Howard Coit and travelled the world as a socialite and upon her death in 1929, left San Francisco one third of her estate with which to beautify her adopted city.

After initial plans to spend the money sprucing up Lake Merced near San Francisco State University were rebuffed by her family, it was decided that a monument would be built atop her beloved Telegraph Hill.

The tower stands 210 feet tall and features an observation deck at the top, with sweeping views of the city and the bay, as well as a large collection of old socialist inspired fresco murals from the New Deal arts projects of the 1930s adorning the inside walls. If you’re in the area or just looking for something to do, check out the different tours available. See you at the top!

Legion of Honor

One of my favorite things to do on a weekend to head for the ocean to wander along the Lands End Trail in the far flung parts of San Francisco. Half way along the track is the turn off to the Legion of Honor and some of the greatest views of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Many locals and tourists are drawn to the Outer Richmond District to visit the Legion of Honor, but if you go there on a weekend, the thing you’ll notice most is the unbelievable number of wedding parties that go there for their wedding photos. Brides and grooms of all types, big wedding parties, small wedding parties, and even the newly engaged go there to pose with the Golden Gate Bridge over their shoulders. It’s a far cry from its former use as a cemetery a little over 100 years ago, which you can learn more about in this episode here:

The Legion has a good collection of art and other stuff, but if I am going to be honest, what interests me most about this place is the landscape. I’ve been there in the fog, the driving rain that comes in sideways, and the glorious sunshine and perfect temperatures of Spring. But it always looks beautiful.

It’s always interesting to see the local architecture in a city and work out who they had been inspired by. With the Legion, there’s no doubting because it’s an exact copy of one built for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exhibition, which was a three-quarter sized replica of the original in Paris.

Caldecott Tunnel

As a kid growing up in Contra Costa County, the Caldecott Tunnel always represented the excitement of going from the quiet suburbs into the throngs of the big cities of Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco. The tunnel was like a magic portal, not only spitting you out somewhere that despite being less than a mile away, looked and felt completely different.
There is nothing like the feeling of being in the Contra Costa summer heat, zipping through the tunnel and feeling the cool, damp air of the bay and catching a glimpse of the City and Golden Gate as you come down the last bits of the Oakland hills.

The tunnel also played a large part in the population explosion of Contra County in the 50s and 60s, around the time that my family moved there because of the easy access to my Grandfather’s job in San Francisco. It’s fair to say that without their construction, I might not even exist. When you factor that in, how could I not be interested in it? So join me as we take a look at its fascinating history in my latest episode.

The tunnels were designated an Oakland city landmark on January 22, 1980, forty-three years after they first opened. Check out Oakland’s local wiki page for more of their history or hop in your car and go check them out for yourself. Don’t forget to hold your breath for good luck!

Sather Tower(The Campanile)

One of my favorite landmarks, architecturally-wise, has always been the clock tower at U.C. Berkeley, better known as the Campanile, although officially known as Sather Tower. The neo-gothic design has always made me think of the great academic institutions of the Northeast like Yale or Harvard and the faded stone facade reminds me of how long both it and the school have been there.

Designed by John Galen Howard, who at the time of construction was the head of the school’s architecture department, the 307 foot tower was built in 1914 at a time of great expansion at the University but wasn’t fully completed and open to the public until three years later in 1917 due to the 12 large bells that had to be cast in England being delayed because of World War I.

After having visited Italy in the 1890s, Howard drew his inspiration from the famous Campanile of St Mark’s basilica at the piazza San Marco in Venice which had been constructed in 1514. The funds to construct the bell tower came from Jane K Sather in early 1911, who had previously donated money for the construction of the Sather Gate, as well as for academic endowments in memory of her late husband Peder, who was a trustee of the original College of California, U.C. Berkeley’s predecessor. In an ironic twist, the Campanile in Venice would collapse in 1902, just after Howard’s visit and would be rebuilt over the next ten years at almost the same time as it’s cousin in California.

Learn more about the fascinating history of the Campanile on this episode of Historic Bay Area.

In 1958, the Campanile saw its first suicide, as a local attorney jumped from the open air observation deck and after a second suicide, this time from a student in 1961, the University installed safety barriers over the openings, which at first were glass, but after discovering that they muffled the sounds of the bells, a metal grill was substituted instead. 

The original twelve bells were never deemed sufficient enough to play the full compliment of songs that had been envisioned for them, including the Star Spangled Banner, and discussions about expanding them lingered on for decades following their installation.

In 1978, the class of 1928 in celebration of their 50 year reunion, donated funds to add 36 bells to the tower, and 13 more are added a few years later following a gift from Jerry Chambers (class of 1928) and Evelyn Chambers (class of 1932). The carillon now became a grand carillon, with 61 bells spanning five octaves. Mr. and Mrs. Chambers also donated funds to employ a full time carillonist, practice rooms with instruments, a library, and a carillon festival every five years.

If you’re interested in taking in a performance of the Campanile carillon, check out their schedule here. They play anything from the Cal fight song to the Top Gun theme.

Not only that, but while you’re there, visit the open-air observation deck, with sweeping views of Berkeley, the Bay and San Francisco every day until 6pm. It’s only $3, so get out there!

Kezar Stadium

Although I’d been to Kezar Stadium many times and knew it had a rich history, I’d never really taken the time to really appreciate it until now. Luckily there was a semi-professional soccer game going on over there recently, so I took the time to go visit the old park and see where San Francisco sports used to live.

The history of the stadium dates back 100 years to 1917 when socialite Mary Kezar left a $100,000 gift to the City to help build a “playground” in the name of her mother Nancy, who was an early San Francisco pioneer. Although the “playground” was supposed to be for San Francisco Polytechnic High School, the City had other plans.

San Francisco’s leaders had been trying to build a large sports ground for sometime when Mary Kezar died and the park commission decided that they could kill two birds with one stone if they used the money to build the stadium in Golden Gate Park, right across the street from S.F. Polytechnic High School. The City tossed in another $200,000 and construction commenced in 1924.

The stadium only took a year to build and found many uses right away, including high school and college football, track and field, boxing, rugby, cricket and pretty much anything else you could think of.

Both the 49ers and Raiders NFL teams began at Kezar, as well, with the Niners staying until moving to Candlestick in 1971 and the Raiders playing only in their inaugural season of 1960.

After football left in the early 1970s, the stadium found a number of other uses, including starring in the Clint Eastwood blockbuster Dirty Harry (1971) in which the antagonist, Scorpio, lives at the stadium and is ultimately shot there by Dirty Hairy, as well.

The stadium’s location, just a few streets away from Haight-Ashbury, meant the stadium was also an ideal place to host rock concerts in the late 60s and after, seeing such acts as The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Starship, Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin.

In 1989, the old stadium was almost completely torn down and replaced by a smaller, abbreviated 10,000 version more befitting for somewhere that mostly now just hosts high school football games, track and field events and local professional soccer.

So get out to Golden Gate Park and check out this relic of San Francisco for yourself!

Lake Merritt

For the first episode of Historic Bay Area, I decided to dive deeper and find out all the things I never knew about somewhere I pass by almost every day: Lake Merritt.

Just across the Bay from San Francisco is Oakland, and just steps from downtown is the scenic Lake Merritt. Referred to by many as the “Crown Jewel” of Oakland, it covers 155 acres, and is 3.4 miles in circumference. Contrary to its name, it’s not actually a lake. Originally, it started off as an arm of the San Francisco Bay formed at the confluence where several creeks emptied into the Bay before it was dammed in 1868, from where it gets it current heart shape.

Some refer to Lake Merritt being a breathing, vibrant heart in the middle of downtown Oakland, but it wasn’t always the case. For years, the lake has been the cesspool of the city.

Mayor Samuel Merritt’s decision in 1868 to dam the lake prevented the regular tidal flows that helped clean it out twice a day. As more and more people moved into the burgeoning city of Oakland, an estimated 90% of the city’s raw sewage flowed directly in to the lake. By 1892, the City Engineer reported that the lake was filling in at the rate of one inch per year with human waste. As a result, the city of Oakland issued an ordinance in 1912 banning swimming in Lake Merritt, which is still in effect today.

Clean-up efforts have been underway for well over a century and there’s still more to be done. If you’re interested in getting involved in helping clean up the lake, you can team up with other volunteers from the Lake Merritt Institute, a non-profit that oversees the upkeep of the lake.