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Coit Tower

Coit Tower stands 210 feet on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, completed in 1933 with money left by Lillie Hitchcock Coit, an honorary volunteer firefighter who died in 1929. Its ground floor is wrapped in fresco murals painted in 1934 by 22 artists under a federal relief program. A dispute over communist imagery delayed the public opening until October.

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Quick answer

1Lillie Hitchcock Coit was 15 when she helped the Knickerbocker Engine Co. No. 5 crew on Telegraph Hill in 1858

2She left one third of her estate to San Francisco 'for the purpose of adding to the beauty of the city'

3The bequest funded Coit Tower and the volunteer firefighters monument in Washington Square

Full transcript

Lillie Hitchcock Coit, Before the Tower

Lillie Hitchcock Coit was born in 1843 and raised on the west side of Telegraph Hill. She was fifteen in the summer of 1858 when she ran uphill to help a crew with Knickerbocker Engine Company Number Five. The company adopted her as an honorary member. She signed her name "Lillie Hitchcock Coit No. 5". She wore red flannel, smoked cigars, played poker in waterfront saloons, and shaved her head. She married Howard Coit, caller at the San Francisco Mining Exchange, who left her well off when he died in 1885. She spent decades traveling in Europe, lived long stretches in Paris, and returned to California late in life. Her will at her death in 1929 directed roughly one third of the estate toward, in her words, adding to the beauty of the city I have always loved. That clause is why this tower exists. Find the small relief of her on the monument across the square and look at the engine above her.

The Telegraph Hill She Lived On

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The Bequest and the Competition

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Twenty-Two Painters in a Lobby

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What the Pictures Show

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The Strike at the Foot of the Hill

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The Padlocking

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What Was Actually Painted Over

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The Stairwell Murals

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The View, The Money, The Mistake

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What to Look for on the Way Out

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Deep-dive audio

1Lillie Hitchcock Coit, Before the Tower0:57Free preview
2The Telegraph Hill She Lived On0:50Unlock to listen
3The Bequest and the Competition0:53Unlock to listen
4Twenty-Two Painters in a Lobby0:51Unlock to listen
5What the Pictures Show0:47Unlock to listen
6The Strike at the Foot of the Hill0:42Unlock to listen
7The Padlocking1:01Unlock to listen
8What Was Actually Painted Over0:51Unlock to listen
9The Stairwell Murals0:46Unlock to listen
10The View, The Money, The Mistake0:46Unlock to listen
11What to Look for on the Way Out0:46Unlock to listen

On the ground

Checked against official sources on the dates shown. Nothing here is a price or an opening hour — those go stale.

Which way in

Filbert Street steps, at Sansome
The stairway starts in the parking lot on Filbert across from Levi's Plaza. The Greenwich steps are the ones people miss — that trailhead is tucked into a cul-de-sac at Greenwich and Sansome, behind trees.
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39 Coit bus from Fisherman's Wharf
The 39 terminates at a stop called Coit Tower, with intermediate stops on Telegraph Hill Boulevard at Filbert and at Greenwich.
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Filbert Street from the North Beach side
The western approach is less steep than the bay side and finishes on a short staircase into Pioneer Park.
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Not by car
Hilltop parking is very limited and the line of cars waiting for it runs long at peak times. Locals call it a lottery.
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The elevator, or thirteen flights
The elevator is ninety years old and may not be running. If it is down, the viewing level is thirteen flights of stairs.
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When to come

The first hour of the day
The elevator is the bottleneck, not the tower. Later the line for it can stretch past forty-five minutes.
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When not to

Winter, on the open top deck
It gets very windy up there. Carry a warm layer for the top floor.
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Fog on the hill
Fog obscures the view from the tower, and the view is the only thing the elevator buys you.
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Carrying a backpack
Crowds narrow the interior and packs have to be worn on the front of the body.
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Where the shot is

The corner of Greenwich and Montgomery, halfway up the steps
Treasure Island, Yerba Buena Island and the Bay Bridge. The best vantage on either stairway.
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The Powell-Hyde cable car stop at the top of the crooked Lombard block
The tower itself, in the distance, which is the shot you cannot take from inside it.
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The Filbert steps
The cherry-headed conures. If the flock is on the hill you will hear it before you see it.
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Eat nearby

Coit Tower Cafe
On site, by the lobby. Food and drink cannot be carried into the tower, so finish it outside.
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Where next

north-beach-sf walk
Washington Square is three blocks downhill from the Greenwich Street approach.
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pier-39-sf walk
Down to the base of the steps, then along the Embarcadero — about fifteen minutes from the foot of the stairs. Descend the stairway you did not climb and the whole thing is a loop.
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More photos of this stop

All from Wikimedia Commons, each credited to its photographer; tap any photo for the original and its full licence.

trophygeek from San Francisco · CC BY 2.0

Sharon Mollerus from Minneapolis, United States · CC BY 2.0

Sasha • Instagram.com/sanfrancisco sanfrancisco · CC0

WT-shared) PerryPlanet at wts wikivoyage · Public domain

Browse every photo of this place →

Open in maps

Google Maps Apple Maps

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What travelers say

Distilled from Google, TripAdvisor, Reddit and Chinese-language posts — every claim links to its source.

Yelp: 4.1 (1,001 reviews) (2026-08-24)

Yelp

Worth coming for the 1930s WPA murals alone — many visitors never realize they're inside the lobby.

Tip: See the Depression-era murals on the ground floor first (free); the paid elevator deck adds the panorama, but art fans can happily skip the top.

Yelp reviewers' most-repeated insider point

TripAdvisor

There are some pretty cool 1930s WPA murals inside the tower.

Tip: Take the Filbert Steps up through the cottages and gardens instead of driving — Telegraph Hill streets are steep, narrow, and parking is effectively nonexistent.

Coit Tower is cool at night.

Tip: The tower itself closes evenings, but the hilltop parking lot stays a local sunset spot — drive or rideshare up for night skyline shots without paying for the elevator.

Google Maps

Wild parrot flocks frequent the trees around Telegraph Hill.

Tip: Listen for squawking on the Greenwich/Filbert steps — the famous wild parrots are often there late afternoon, a detail almost no guidebook mentions.

recurring sighting reports in Google Maps reviews

After the guide

Practical bookings for this stop. These are affiliate links: they cost you nothing extra and they do not change what we recommend.

Frequently asked

Was Coit Tower designed to look like a fire hose nozzle?

No. The architects, Arthur Brown Jr. and Henry Howard, said the fluted concrete shaft was a plain classical column and that any resemblance to firefighting equipment was accidental. The story survives because the donor spent her life attached to a volunteer engine company, which makes the coincidence too neat for people to give up.

Do you have to pay to see the murals?

The lobby frescoes on the ground floor are open without a ticket. The elevator to the observation deck is the part that charges, and there is usually a queue for it because the cab is small. A second set of murals climbing the stairwell can only be seen on a guided tour, which runs on limited days.

Why were the murals controversial?

They were painted while the 1934 waterfront strike shut the port, and critics found leftist symbols in them: a hammer and sickle, the slogan Workers of the World Unite, and the masthead of a communist paper on a newsstand. Those details were removed. The July opening was canceled and the public was admitted on October 12, 1934.

What do the murals actually show?

California at work during the Depression: wheat harvests, orange picking, a steel mill, a stockbroker's office, a library reading room, a street corner with a holdup in progress. The technique is buon fresco, pigment painted into wet plaster, and the composition borrows openly from Diego Rivera, who had recently completed commissions in the city.

How did Lillie Hitchcock Coit make her money?

She married Howard Coit, caller of the San Francisco Mining Exchange, and inherited from him and from her own family. Widowed in 1885, she spent long stretches in Paris and returned to California late in life. By her death in 1929 the estate was large enough that a third of it paid for both a monument and a landmark.

Sources

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Image credit

Photo: Coit Memorial Tower 07.jpg by Almonroth, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. This poster is a derivative work and carries the same licence.