Sutro Tower is a three-pronged antenna tower on Clarendon Heights, (a connected hill just southeast of Mount Sutro), in central San Francisco, California. It is a dominant part of the city skyline, and a useful landmark for locals. However, strong local opposition and criticism was directed towards the tower even before it was completed. The two main controversies surrounding the construction of Sutro Tower were local politics and the aesthetic e...
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Sutro Tower is a three-pronged antenna tower on Clarendon Heights, (a connected hill just southeast of Mount Sutro), in central San Francisco, California. It is a dominant part of the city skyline, and a useful landmark for locals. However, strong local opposition and criticism was directed towards the tower even before it was completed. The two main controversies surrounding the construction of Sutro Tower were local politics and the aesthetic effect the tower would have on the rest of San Francisco. San Francisco writer Herb Caen once said, “I keep waiting for it to stalk down the hill and attack the Golden Gate Bridge.”
Before its construction, television reception in San Francisco was quite spotty, as the many hills of the city would block the line-of-sight radio waves — this was before the rise in popularity of cable television. Before Sutro Tower, transmitters were scattered throughout the Bay Area, including at San Bruno Mountain, Mt. Allison, Monument Peak, and Mt. Diablo....
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