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Pioneer Park is a 4.89-acre (19,800 m2) park crowning the top of Telegraph Hill in San Francisco. It was established in 1876 in celebration of the United States Centennial. Prior to establishment of the park, it was the site of the Marine Telegraph Station. The main feature of the park, Coit Tower, was completed in 1933 using a $118,000 bequest left to the city by Lillie Hitchcock Coit in 1929. A bronze statue of Christopher Columbus was placed in the park in 1957, and removed in June, 2020.
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Telegraph Hill, San Francisco
Telegraph Hill (elev. 285 ft (87 m)) is a hill and surrounding neighborhood in San Francisco, California. It is one of San Francisco's 44 hills, and one of its original "Seven Hills". The iconic Coit Tower stands at the apex of Telegraph Hill.
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Coit Tower
Coit Tower ( KOYT; also known as Coit Memorial Tower) is a 210-foot (64 m) tower in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California, overlooking the city and San Francisco Bay. The tower, in the city's Pioneer Park, was built between 1932 and 1933 using Lillie Hitchcock Coit's bequest to beautify the city of San Francisco. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 29, 2008.
The Art Deco tower, built of unpainted reinforced concrete, was designed by architects Arthur Brown Jr. and Henry Temple Howard. The interior features fresco murals in the American Social Realism style, painted by 22 different onsite artists and their numerous assistants. Three artists preferred oil on canvas and worked offsite. One artist preferred egg tempera rather than fresco.
It is often erroneously stated that the structure was dedicated to the volunteer firemen who had died in San Francisco's five major fires, but that is not accurate. The tower was constructed as the result of a bequest by Lillie Hitchcock Coit, whose will included two bequests, one to create a memorial to the city's volunteer firefighters, which was done by statuary in Washington Square, and the other to beautify the city. Coit Tower is the result of the second bequest. A concrete relief of a phoenix by sculptor Robert Boardman Howard is placed above the main entrance. It was commissioned by the architect and cast as part of the building.
Although an apocryphal story claims that the tower was designed to resemble a fire hose nozzle due to Coit's affinity with the San Francisco firefighters of the day, the resemblance is coincidental.
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Statue of Christopher Columbus (San Francisco)
A statue of Christopher Columbus was installed in Pioneer Park, San Francisco, California.
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Julius' Castle
Julius' Castle is a castle-shaped building that sits at 1541 Montgomery Street on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco. It served as a visual landmark and as a restaurant for many years, originally opening between 1924 and 1928. Since 1980, the building has been listed as a San Francisco Landmark Number 121. The architecture is described by the San Francisco Planning Department as, "primarily derived from the Gothic Revival and Arts & Crafts Styles".