Coit Tower

One place we often visit on our trips to San Francisco is Coit Tower. Sitting atop Telegraph Hill it is a beacon in the San Francisco skyline and from which you get magnificent panoramic views of the city and the bay. Even on a foggy day the views are still spectacular.

You can see the fog rolling in

Bay Bridge

Alcatraz (the Golden Gate bridge is off to the left but it was shrouded in fog)

View of Lombard St. (crookedest street in the world)

Usually when we arrive Coit Tower is packed with tourists, but on this day we arrived around 4:30 and there was hardly anyone around. 

Coit Tower was designed by architect Henry Howard and was completed in 1933.  The popular belief is that the design was intended to resemble a fire hose nozzle, but that is not true. The simple, vertical design was chosen because it best created a monumental statement given the small site and the budget of $125,000 left by Lillie Hitchcock Coit (a colorful and flamboyant figure in San Francisco's history). The tower's symmetrical simplicity and sleek linearism is a union between classicism and Art Deco.