Labor Arts: Coit Tower's WPA Murals

While in San Francisco last week, I stopped by Coit Tower for a visit. An icon on the San Francisco skyline, Coit Tower is home not only to the famous wild parrots of Telegraph Hill but one of California's best examples of depression-era public art. The colorful murals decorating Coit Tower's lobby were painted in 1934 by 25 artists employed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the depths of the Great Depression.  Brilliantly rendered in Diego Rivera's social realism style, the murals are sympathetic portrayals of the daily life of working-class Californians during the Depression. "Because some people felt the murals were subversive and depicted 'Communist' themes," reports Betsy Malloy on About.com, "the authorities delayed the opening of Coit Tower for several months," upsetting the local labor community, which was already outraged by the shooting deaths of two strikers during the Longshoremen's Strike of 1934. There's no charge to view the murals (postcards and other mural souvenirs are on sale in the gift shop); for $4.50 you can take an elevator to the top of the tower for some of the best views in the city. - report/photos by Chris Garlock