6/23/2023 0 Comments Semaphor hillAside from Coit Tower, it is well known for its gardens flowing down the nearly 400 wooden steps of Filbert Street steps down to Levi's Plaza. Telegraph Hill is primarily a residential area, much quieter than adjoining North Beach with its bustling cafés and nightlife. In the 1920s, Telegraph Hill became, along with adjacent North Beach, a destination for poets and bohemian intellectuals, dreaming of turning it into a West Coast West Village. Telegraph Hill retained its name and is now registered as California Historical Landmark #91, with a bronze plaque in the lobby of Coit Tower marking the location of the original signal station. In 1932–1933, Coit Tower was built where the semaphore and telegraph once stood. In 1876, the hilltop land of the original Marine Telegraph Station was purchased by George Hearst, who donated it to the city under the stipulation that the land be dubbed as the Pioneer Park. ![]() In September 1853, the first telegraph in California, which extended eight miles to Point Lobos, San Francisco, was set up on the hill and replaced the semaphore, therefore giving the hill the name of "Telegraph Hill." This telegraph was known as the Marine Telegraph Station, and was destroyed by a storm in 1870. ![]() Exposed rock from this quarrying is still visible from the Filbert Steps and from Broadway, where there was a large landslide on February 27, 2007, that damaged property and forced the evacuation of many residents. Rocks for ballast were quarried from the bay side of Telegraph Hill. Sailing ships brought cargo to San Francisco but needed ballast when leaving. Telegraph Hill and the Coit Tower after sunset as seen from the East Bay The pole-and-arm signals on the Telegraph Hill semaphore became so well known to townspeople of San Francisco that, according to one story, during a play in a San Francisco theater, an actor held his arms aloft and cried, "Oh God, what does this mean?", prompting a rogue in the gallery to shout, "Sidewheel steamer!", which brought down the house. On October 18, 1850, the ship Oregon signaled to the hill as it was entering the Golden Gate the news of California's recently acquired statehood. Those who did not have advance information on the cargo might pay a too-high price from a merchant unloading his stock of a commodity-a price that was about to drop. Knowing the nature of the cargo carried by the ship they could predict the upcoming (generally lower) local prices for those goods and commodities carried. ![]() The information was used by observers operating for financiers, merchants, wholesalers and speculators. Atop the newly built house, the marine telegraph consisted of a pole with two raisable arms that could form various configurations, each corresponding to a specific meaning: steamer, sailing boat, etc. The hill owes its name to a semaphore, a windmill-like structure erected in September 1849, for the purpose of signaling to the rest of the city the nature of the ships entering the Golden Gate. Originally named Loma Alta ("High Hill") by the Spaniards, the hill was then familiarly known as Goat Hill by the early San Franciscans and became the neighborhood of choice for many Irish immigrants.įrom 1825 through 1847, the area between Sansome and Battery, Broadway and Vallejo streets was used as a burial ground for foreign non- Catholic seamen. The neighborhood is bounded by Vallejo Street to the south, Sansome Street to the east, Francisco Street to the north and Powell Street and Columbus Avenue to the west, where the northwestern corner of Telegraph Hill overlaps with the North Beach neighborhood. The San Francisco Chronicle defines the Chinatown, North Beach, and Telegraph Hill areas as bounded by Sacramento Street, Taylor Street, Bay Street, and the water.
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