{"id":15034,"date":"2018-06-06T09:00:28","date_gmt":"2018-06-06T13:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/museumhack.com\/?p=15034"},"modified":"2022-11-20T00:17:59","modified_gmt":"2022-11-20T05:17:59","slug":"coit-tower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/museumhack.com\/coit-tower\/","title":{"rendered":"The Real Story of Coit Tower"},"content":{"rendered":"

You may only know Coit Tower<\/strong> as\u00a0the phallic-shaped building featured in at least one frame of every opening montage of a TV show and movie set in San Francisco (or you may not know it at all), but did you also<\/i> know that tower is in San Francisco because of a hard-drinking, heavy gambling, pants-wearing, fireman-loving lady named Lillie?<\/p>\n

Yeah, we bet you didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

This is the real story of Lillie Coit and Coit Tower.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Lillie Coit: This Girl Is on Fire<\/h3>\n

Lillie Hitchcock Coit began her love affair with fighting fires at a young age.<\/p>\n

While still in school, Coit came upon the Knickerbocker No. 5, an understaffed and struggling volunteer fire engine (there was no city fire department at the time) trying to maneuver the steep hills of San Francisco. Coit immediately tossed her school books aside and ran to the aid of the men pulling the engine.<\/p>\n

What Coit\u2019s 15-year-old arms couldn\u2019t do, her voice could, as she yelled at more passersby to help instead of standing just standing around. Because of Coit\u2019s pleas for help, the fire engine made it to its destination and succeeded in extinguishing the fire. From then on, Lillie Hitchcock Coit, or ‘Firebelle Lil’ Coit as she came to be known, was given the title of honorary firefighter. Firebelle Lil\u2019 was even celebrated alongside the men of the Knickerbocker No. 5 in parades and floats throughout the city.<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Luck Be a Lillie Coit Tonight<\/h3>\n

Not content just to fight fires with the boys, Coit, a woman with old money and new ambitions, wanted to enjoy all the manly pastimes her male companions enjoyed, too.<\/p>\n

Coit was a voracious gambler, often the only woman in the game, and would sometimes even disguise herself as a man in order to get into some of the more elite \u201cno dames allowed\u201d underground games. Coit also was an avid hunter, shocking the men around her with her expert sharpshooting skills.<\/p>\n

She once even witnessed a murder when a business associate stormed her Palace Hotel room with a gun after a failed deal. The would-be-murderer was shot by Coit\u2019s associate, but we think that if Coit had been a bit younger (she was 60 years old at the time), she would have done the deed herself.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Coit Tower: A Towering Tribute<\/h3>\n

When Lillie Hitchcock Coit died in 1929, she left a whopping one-third of her fortune to the city of San Francisco, so the city could build a tribute fitting of her love and admiration for her beloved home.<\/p>\n

After some consideration, it was decided that the money should\u00a0be used to build both a tower on Telegraph Hill and statue in Washington Square Park. The statue features three firemen, one of whom is carrying a woman. A more fitting tribute might have been Lillie Hitchcock Coit carrying all three men herself, but we digress\u2026<\/p>\n

The other tribute became Coit Tower.<\/p>\n

On October 8th, 1933, Coit Tower was completed. Designed by Arthur Brown, Jr., the 210-foot tower offers a 360-degree view of the beautiful city of San Francisco on a clear day and lets you know what it would look like to live inside a cloud on a foggy one. Thick and cylindrical, many believed the tower was modeled after the shape of a fire hose as a further tribute to Lady Coit but that is just a coincidence.<\/p>\n

Throughout the tower are hand-painted murals by 27 different artists depicting somewhat radical views on politics, racial equality, and Marxist ideas. The murals were created as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt\u2019s Public Works Art Project.<\/p>\n

Some of these frescos were so controversial that they were painted over after the 1934 longshoremen’s strike. Coit Tower was even locked up from the public, lest visitors get infected by messages in colors on a wall and go mad for equal pay, like at the end of the movie Pleasantville<\/i> when the black and white people start seeing what apples look like.<\/p>\n

Today, you can visit Coit Tower every day of the week, excluding major holidays, and tour its murals for a small fee. On your visit, be sure to pay tribute to the lady that made the tower possible, Lillie Hitchcock Coit.<\/p>\n

A woman who made up for her lack of penis with the size of her balls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lillie Hitchcock Coit was her name and gamblin\u2019 was her game. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":19801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[320,274],"tags":[],"acf":{"show_faq":false,"faq_title":"","faq_description":"","faq_list_item":null},"yoast_head":"\nThe Real Story of Coit Tower<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Lillie Hitchcock Coit was her name and gamblin\u2019 was her game.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/museumhack.com\/coit-tower\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Real Story of Coit Tower\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lillie Hitchcock Coit was her name and gamblin\u2019 was 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