Magic After Dark at Coit Tower: San Francisco Stories

the bronze elevator doors at the base of coit tower slide open with a heavy oiled rumble revealing an operator who has worked this concrete shaft long enough to smell an incoming fog bank before it clears the headlands last week we followed quiet magic through the hidden alleys of waverly place but tonight our compass points east toward telegraph hill up here 210 feet of fluted concrete rises into the dusk built back in 1933 with the eccentric bequest of lily hitchcock coit at this hour the daytime crowds have thinned down the filbert steps leaving only a lone city archivist named arthur clutching an oversized ring of brass keys arthur's task is simple lock the perimeter gates and

inspect the lobby murals painted during the depression under the public works of art project on the plaster walls scenes of california life stand frozen in tempera dock workers lifting crates farmers tending citrus miners leaning into shale arthur circles the rotunda his boots squeaking softly against the polished floor outside the cold salt wind whips up from the bay humming through the concrete flutes overhead like a mammoth tuning fork that is when arthur stops near the southern alcove a painted orange picker on the wall reaches for fruit that hangs from a wet plaster bough arthur looks down rolling across the linoleum floor catching the dim amber bulb above is a fresh solid navel orange arthur bends down

and picks it up the skin is cold fragrant and beaded with genuine morning mist he glances up at the wall the painted laborer's hand is now empty fingers curled around thin air arthur steps back his pulse thumping against his collar the mural has begun to breathe a soft collective murmur rises from the plaster the rustle of newsprint the clink of dockside chains the low of streetcars long buried under asphalt the painted figures are shifting trading whispered secrets across ninety years of california soil they're trying to pass something forward before the night chill freezes them back into pigment arthur hesitates fear pulling him toward the heavy exit doors but curiosity roots him to the tiles the

figure of a dock worker leans slightly outward extending a weathered hand holding a worn silver transit token toward the empty air of the rotunda arthur steps forward and accepts it the metal is ice cold as his fingers close around the token a sudden piercing cry breaks the stillness outside a wild flock of redheaded conures erupts from the canopy along the filbert steps their green feathers cutting through the blue evening fog as they wheel around the tower's crown the noise shatters the spell the figures on the walls settle back into flat still brushstrokes perfectly motionless once again under the museum lights arthur walks out into the coastal air pocketing the heavy silver coin beside the cold orange san francisco keeps its history close pressed into concrete and salt air but every now and then the city lets a sliver of its living past slip quietly into your coat pocket