Guglielmo Marconi Memorial

 Posted by on October 31, 2013
Oct 312013
 

Lombard Avenue
On the drive up to Coit Tower
North Beach

Marconi Monument San Francisco

 

This memorial to Guglielmo Marconi was placed sometime in 1938-1939.

A group called the Marconi Memorial Foundation incorporated in the 1930s for the purpose of enshrining Marconi as the inventor of the wireless (a fact contested by the Russians). They placed two memorials one on the slopes of San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill and  one at 16th and Lamont Streets in Washington D.C..

The Foundation collected public subscriptions from the supportive Italian-American community in North Beach, and on April 13, 1938, received permission from the U.S. Congress and President Franklin Roosevelt to erect memorials on public land. The foundation spent $65,115 for the two memorials.

DSC_5433Carved in Raymond California granite the latin on the base reads: Outstripping the lighting, the voice races through the empty sky.”

Marconi Monument Telegraph Hill

Marconi, is credited with not only developing radio telegraphy (wireless), but he brought it to England. A patent was granted him in 1896.

“In 1899 a team of San Franciscans reproduced Guglielmo Marconi’s method of communicating by radio waves and demonstrated its usefulness by sending a message in Morse code from a lightship anchored outside the Golden Gate to the Cliff House on the San Francisco Shore. This was the first wireless message broadcast on the West coast and the first ship-to-shore broadcast in the United States.”  University of Santa Clara: A History, 1851-1977 by Gerald McKevitt 

A month later Marconi himself came to America and repeated some of his experiments.

On April 27th , 1934 Marconi celebrated his 60th birthday by receiving an honorary citizenship of San Francisco. It was conferred in a ceremony at the Academy of Italy by Father Oreste Trinchieri, representing Mayor Angelo Rossi. The inventor made a 10-minute talk. Marconi recalled his visit to San Francisco and the fact that California had welcomed thousands of Italians to her bosom. He asked Trinchieri to convey to the mayor his heartfelt thanks and say that he hopes to return to San Francisco soon.

San Francisco Call

The statues are often credited to Attilio Piccirilli (May 16, 1866 – October 8, 1945)  an American sculptor, born in the province of Massa-Carrara, Italy, and educated at the Accademia di San Luca of Rome.  He in fact did do the Marconi Memorial in Washington D.C.  However, the sculpture in San Francisco has been attributed to Raymond Puccinelli by the Smithsonian Institute.

Puccinelli has been in this site before with his Bison Sculpture.  Son of Antonio and Pearl Puccinelli, Raymond was born in 1904, on Jessie Street in San Francisco, and attended Lowell High School. Puccinelli studied art in both California and Italy, and for a time maintained a studio in Lucca, Italy.  He was sculptor in residence of the  Rinehart School of Sculpture of the Maryland Institute of Art and Peabody Institute. 

View from the Marconi Memorial

 

The view from the Memorial is one reason many people don’t notice it is there.

Telegraph hill was named, not for radio telegraphy (wireless), but for the semaphore visual signaling device erected there at the instructions of ship Captain John B. Montgomery and used from 1846 until the turn of the century.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

 Posted by on June 15, 2012
Jun 152012
 
Telegraph Hill
Coit Tower
WPA Murals
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This pair of canvas’ are also in the elevator alcove.  The depict the farmlands of the Santa Clara Valley and the hills of the East Bay.
The artists was Rinaldo Cuneo. (1877-1939).  Cuneo was a native San Franciscan from North Beach where he maintained a studio.  He was educated at the Mark Hopkins Art Institute as well as in Paris and London.  He taught at the California School of Fine Arts and was a prolific painter.

This is the last in a series of the murals of Coit Tower.  There are more, unfortunately, they are not available to the public.  If you are interested in seeing pictures of them, and learning more about Coit Tower and all of the murals, I highly suggest you search out Masha Zakheim’s Book Coit Tower.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

 Posted by on June 13, 2012
Jun 132012
 
Telegraph Hill
Coit Tower
WPA Murals
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In the alcove, where visitors wait for the elevator are four more murals. This one is titled San Francisco Bay. This is an oil on canvas, and was painted in the artists studio. The two little girls are the artists, Otis Oldfield’s, daughters, Rhoda and Jayne. as they look down on the waterfront from their father’s Telegraph Hill studio. The larger island they are peering at is Yerba Buena Island. That is the island that the present day San Francisco Bay Bridge goes through. Treasure Island, which would have been attached on the left hand side of Yerba Buena, had not yet been built. Treasure Island was built (from fill dredged from the bay) for the Golden Gate International Exposition in 1939-1940.

Otis Oldfield was born in Sacramento in 1890. He came to San Francisco to enroll in Arthur Best’s private art school. In 1911, he went to Paris, where he stayed for sixteen years. In 1924, he began teaching at the California School of Fine Arts. He died in 1969.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower Murals

 Posted by on June 12, 2012
Jun 122012
 
Telegraph Hill
Coit Tower
WPA Murals
News Gathering by Suzanne Scheuer
Scheuer worked with assistant Heve Daum on news gathering for her panel in Coit Tower.
Suzanne Scheuer was born in San Jose, California on February 11, 1898. She moved to San Francisco in 1918. She studied at the California School of Fine Arts and the California College of Arts and Crafts. She then taught for three years in the public schools of Los Banos and Salinas. In 1940 she joined the art faculty at the College of the Pacific in Stockton and taught there for ten years. She then moved to Santa Cruz, California where she designed and built six houses, doing much of the physical and artistic work herself while continuing to paint and sculpt. Scheuer died in Santa Cruz on December 20, 1984.  Other work of hers can be found in the Berkeley, California Post Office as well as two Texas Post Offices.
Sheuer’s window ledge San Francisco Chronicle front page announced the end of the art project in April, though some artists continued to add finishing details until June.

Telegraph Hill – Coit Tower

 Posted by on May 29, 2012
May 292012
 
Telegraph Hill
Coit Tower

To understand Coit Tower you must first understand Lillie Hitchcock Coit.  A nice tale is told here from the Virtual San Francisco History Museum written by: By Frederick J. Bowlen, Battalion Chief, San Francisco Fire Department.

One of the most unusual personalities ever connected with our Fire Department was a woman. She was Lillie Hitchcock Coit, who was destined not only to become a legend but to attain that eminence long before her life ended.

She came to this city in 1851 from West Point, where her father had been an army doctor. Seven years later, when only 15 years old, she began her famous career with Knickerbocker Engine Company No. 5.
One afternoon that pioneer fire company had a short staff on the ropes as it raced to a fire on Telegraph Hill. Because of the shortage of man power, the engine was falling behind. Oh, humiliating and better was the repartee passed by Manhattan No. 2 and Howard No. 3 as the total eclipse seemed to be but a matter of seconds. Then, suddenly there came a diversion. It was the story of Jeanne d’Arc at Orleans, The Maid of Sargossa and Molly Pitcher of Revolutionary fame all over again.Pretty and impulsive Lillie Hitchcock, on her way home from school, saw the plight of the Knickerbocker and tossing her books to the ground, ran to a vacant place on the rope. There she exerted her feeble strength and began to pull, at the same time turning her flushed face to the bystanders and crying: “Come on, you men! Everybody pull and we’ll beat ‘em!”…It continues:When Mrs. Coit died here in July 22, 1929, at the age of 86, she gave practical evidence of her affection for San Francisco. She left one-third of her fortune to the city “to be expended in an appropriate manner for the purpose of adding to the beauty of the city which I have always loved.”For several years after her death, there was question as to the most fitting interpretation of the “appropriate manner” in which to make the memorial. The executors of her will at last determined to erect a memorial tower in honor of this colorful woman.

Coit Tower was built in 1933. The concrete tower was constructed by Arthur Brown Jr., best known for City Hall. The tower is adorned with one simple ornament by Robert Bordman Howard, the phoenix, symbolizing San Francisco’s repeated growth after its many fires.

The structure is made of unpainted reinforced concrete. Contrary to urban legend, the building was not made to resemble a fire hose.

There is a small studio apartment on the second floor of the tower, which was originally used as lodging for the structure’s caretaker.

If you are interested in learning more about Coit Tower, I highly recommend Masha Zakheim’s book Coit Tower, San Francisco Its History and Art

 

 

Christopher Columbus

 Posted by on May 23, 2012
May 232012
 
Coit Tower
Telegraph Hill
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Columbus by Vittorio Di Colbertaldo – 1957

This statue of Christopher Columbus sits in the center of the parking lot for Coit Tower. The figure of Columbus, the famous Italian explorer, gazes out over San Francisco Bay standing on a concrete pedestal in the center of a circular flower bed, bordered by a marble ring. Dedicated on October 12, 1957, the newspapers of the time recorded that “Singers, sailors from American and Italian navies, and spectators stood in reverent silence as 12-foot statue of Christopher Columbus is unveiled today on Telegraph Hill. The sculpture piece was the work of Italy’s Vittorio de Colbertaldo. Columbus Day weekend will be highlighted here tomorrow with a parade.”

Little is known of Count Vittorio di Colbertaldo (Forlì 1902- Verona 1979), other than he was a member of, and official sculptor of Il Duce’s bodyguard.

One stone on the ring to the left of Columbus is from the dedication ceremonies and includes a message from Pope Pius XII reading:

PRESENTED TO THE PEOPLE OF SAN FRANCISCO
BY THE COLUMBUS MONUMENT COMMITTEE
WITH GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT
TO ALL THE DONORS
WHO MADE THIS MEMORIAL POSSIBLE
INCLUDING THE CITY OF GENOA
FOR THE DONATION OF THE PEDESTAL
AND THE MARINI FAMILY
FOR THE GIFT OF THE MARBLE RING
VITTORIO di COLBERTALDO
DESIGNER and SCULPTOR

June 18, 2020

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