COMMUNITIES

Telegraph Hill

Telegraph Hill is one San Francisco’s oldest neighborhoods, inhabited long before the gold rush by the men who worked on the nearby waterfront. Today, Telegraph Hill is home to the largest concentration of pre-1870 buildings in the City including Italianate homes, Carpenter Gothic, and charming cottages with their steeply pitched roofs and ornate wooden scroll work. Coit Tower, named after the heiress who donated the funds to honor San Francisco's firefighters, dominates the skyline of this residential community just above Chinatown and North Beach. While steep, the slopes of Telegraph Hill lead to the Financial District, Fisherman's Wharf, and the waterfront along the Barbary Coast. The Filbert Street Steps, one of the many wooden walkways that crisscross this community, provide a pathway up the hill from Levi Plaza. Climbers can take the steps to Coit Tower, past flowering community gardens, and towering trees colonized by rowdy flocks of escaped parrots now gone feral. While the view from the top of Coit Tower draws tourists from around the world, Saints Peter and Paul Church looks out onto Washington Square, remains the center piece of the neighborhood.