Sutro Tower: San Francisco's least appreciated landmark | Hacker News Reader

Sutro Tower: San Francisco's least appreciated landmark

sutrotower.org

85 pointsstevewilhelm42 comments

"...residents at this time focused on their belief that the installation of digital antennas was not allowed per the conditional use permit originally granted. Beyond seismic safety, the other chief complaint from residents involved possible electromagnetic effects on humans."

Never mind that DTV is broadcast on the same UHF band that's been in use for decades. Or that because of the increased resiliency to noise a digital signal can be transmitted at a lower power level while covering the same area. No, let's just ignore scientific fact and whip up a bunch of anti-radiation hysteria.

But I was amused that the old mansion rather than cut down a tree built the front steps around the trunk.

Sutro Tower is one of my favorite radio towers in the world. The design is unique and beautiful. I have a thing for aviation orange, I guess.

On a purely pragmatic level, Mount Sutro (née Parnassus) is the only place to put radio antennae in San Francisco. They could have built the standard array of 1000' standalone guyed towers, but instead they went to great effort to come up with a distinctive design.

Either way, the tower(s) were going to get built, and would be visible from every point in the city, so I feel lucky that they didn't take the easy way out.

Sorry, but I don't like it. I think it looks ugly and you can see it practically from everywhere. I never liked it...

> you can see it practically from everywhere

That's why a lot of people, myself included, like it. It's always there if you live here (unless Karl's swallowed it again), but doesn't feature on postcards or travel brochures. We love our tourists, but it's nice for citizens to have an icon of their own that people who don't live here don't really get or even notice.

> you can see it practically from everywhere

Kind of the point for a comms tower, no?

to be heard, not seen

ever heard the phrase 'line of sight'?

Is that why its so ugly? No.

I grew up with Sutro Tower as part of the SF skyline so I don't really hate it. As the title states, I don't appreciate it as much as the rest of SF's landmarks because it's so different from everything else such as Coit Tower, the Transamerica pyramid, or even the Golden Gate Bridge. It looks ugly compared to modern structures like the new bay bridge. Compared to the rest of SF's landmarks, Sutro Tower doesn't seem to fit in.

To each their own. I find the new bay bridge ugly. I much preferred the old one and would have preferred it had been replaced with something more classic. I also find the Sutro Tower beautiful.

I live in the Twin Peaks neighborhood, and regularly run up to Sutro Tower on my morning workout. You can get surprisingly close to it, and there's an oval track adjacent to the tower where you can run. Highly recommend! It's quite breathtaking looking up at it from the ground, in a strange way.

there's a pretty fun dirt trail right around the hill that it's on, too.

It always amazes me how specific the moisture deposition is from the fog up there. One side will be muddy after a foggy day, the other side will be dry.

I live not too far from Sutro Tower. One use for it: fog indicator. I used to commute from Pleasanton back into SF. I'd always take a look at Sutro Tower. If it was shrouded in fog, I knew my house would be too. If it was sunny on Sutro, I knew I'd see blue sky at my house as well.

I always say that Sutro tower is way more "San Francisco" than Coit Tower. Coit Tower is pretty much just a tourist destination whereas every time I'm traveling and get back to SF, I feel at home when I see that big antenna.

Coit tower looks a lot blander to me. It just isn't distinctive and mostly blends in with its surroundings. Whereas Sutro has a nice interesting design, is high enough that it can poke out from under Karl the Fog, and it can be seen from a great radius around SF. I've also seen it from the East Bay.

I lived across the street from Sutro tower for 5 years, there is a great paved path around a water reservoir where you can run or walk your dog. Once a year they bring in a herd of goats to clear out the vegetation - very fun to see this happening in the middle of San francisco.

http://youtu.be/LkSzoM__1O8

Fascinating read - nicely done. Interesting suggestion that planning objections were late possibly because the media outlets that wanted the tower also suppressed news about its construction!

It is absolutely the #1 most visible landmark in the city.

When you are hiking far the north up the coast -- say, Mt. Wittenberg -- you can just barely make out the city to the south ... it's so tiny ... and you can distinctly see "the big bug." Or, from Mt. Diablo, or from Russian Ridge down on the peninsula. This is in addition to being visible from practically everywhere within the city itself.

It's an amazing landmark and, I've come to be quite fond of it.

I try to go to Twin Peaks park every time I go to SF. It's such an awesome view and it's so easy to get to. Such a great way to start a trip!

Sutro Tower is unappreciated? Not among my friend group. I have friends who have suggested Sutro Tower would make a great tattoo.

Yeah, I live right by the thing and love staring it when the fog is rolling over it. Would not call it unappreciated.

When I visited San Francisco for the first time for JavaOne last year the Sutro was the last landmark I saw and finally got a glimpse of it on the highway back to the airport. It's a cool structure and I definitely felt it was iconic "San Francisco" after the Golden Gate, Alcatraz, Transmerica Pyramid and Coit Tower.

I'm reminded of the not-quite-as-tall equivalent Crystal Palace transmitter tower in London (which I can see in the distance outside my window)... http://www.thebigtower.com/live/CrystalPalace/Index.htm

It's too bad the tower isn't open to the public. I bet the views from the top are incredible. (As evidenced: http://kiehart.tumblr.com/post/74847934277/up-above-it-all-s...)

Are you aware of any active microwave communication towers [0] that are open to the public?

[0] This means structures whose primary purpose to to act as a communication tower, rather than a tourist attraction (Eiffel Tower) or office building (er, every tall office building ever?).

In the back country, especially in the sierras, you can get pretty close to some microwave and other communication relay stations. Not open to the public, but you can nearly walk right up to them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernsehturm_Berlin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostankino_Tower

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallinn_TV_Tower

Plenty of examples like this.

Not really comparable to Sutro Tower but they are there.

In Brazil: http://www.curitiba.pr.gov.br/idioma/portugues/linhaturismo/...

It was built to provide telephonic transmission and has two floors specially built to be visited.

Ooh! Thanks to both you and jnsaff2. Those towers are pretty nifty.

This was one of the most terrifying sights in San Francisco when I was a kid, and the best my parents could do to explain it was to say it had something to do with TV.

The players of http://sf0.org certainly appreciate it. If you can put a flag on top, you win the game.

On a foggy day, seeing the top of Sutro Tower poke out, looking like a ship in the sea.

I spent 7 years working on the footstep of Mount Parnassus, and I love that tower.

I always call it Twin Peaks. I guess it's wrong.

is THAT what it's called! I have a 1/30th scale model in our home. My grandfather calls it the Devil's Pitchfork :P

My friends all call it The Claw :P

I've heard it referred to as the box that the Transamerica Pyramid came in (both were built at around the same time).

There are some people who call it the Space Claw: https://www.flickr.com/people/spaceclaw

A 1/30th scale model would still be over 30 feet tall. (The real tower is nearly 1000 feet/300 meters tall.) Are you sure you don't mean, say, 1/300th scale?

Pretty cool picture, I love how Orion is in the sky and the tower itself looks somewhat like my favorite constellation ;)

Where does the overly-opinionated title come from?

Currently: Sutro Tower: San Francisco's least appreciated landmark

yeah okay, totally unappreciated.

give me a break, it's not 1995.

that's like saying oakland is the new brooklyn.

tear it down. and those damn Hollywood letters too. some people have no taste.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com