North Beach Walking Tour November 14th, 2024
Elevator is still out. We had to cancel a tour in September, 2023 because of the elevator.
By Sam Whiting, Reporter Updated Oct 27, 2024 8:30 p.m.
It was a bonus when Timothy and Judy Jensen of Chicago arrived at Coit Tower on Sunday and saw a sign taped on the elevator saying it was out of order, while another sign ominously said it is 234 steps to the top.
Perfect. That way they could take the stairs, which are normally closed off unless one signs up for a $7 stairway mural tour on top of the $10 admission. So they were $14 ahead as they set their Apple watches and began the climb, 13 flights up a narrow and twisting concrete staircase.
“It adds to the experience,” said Timothy Jensen, who clocked it in 9 minutes and 40 seconds. “Effort in, reward out.”
In its 90 years as an attraction on San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill, Coit Tower is only now trending with the stair-climbing set, thanks largely to an 18-month shutdown of the elevator, which means that everyone who wants to see the view from the top has to take the stairs. Concerns that this would cripple the revenue for riding to the top have proved unfounded. Having to make that climb hasn’t hurt admissions, and it may be helping among those like the Jensens, who don’t mind being able to log 234 valuable uphill steps on their fitness apps.
“There are people who run up the stairs and time themselves,” said Terry Grimm, general manager of Coit Tower, who has been studying the phenomenon since the old elevator conked out for good in April 2023. He will probably be studying it for a while longer still because the elevator continues to vex the experts. An all-points bulletin was put out for an “elevator whisperer,” and a consultant is being brought in this week.
With S.F. Coit Tower’s elevator out after 18 months, stairs become their own attraction
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