the city at the same time. Arsonists burned down the 1929 cross in 1931. In 1933 Mayor Angelo Rossi, Governor and former Mayor "Sunny Jim" James Rolph, the Easter Sunrise Service Committee, and the Native Sons of the Golden West pledged to construct a permanent cross to commemorate the early California pioneers. The high concrete and steel cross was completed the next year with President Franklin D. Roosevelt lighting the cross via telegraph from the White House on March 24, 1934 – eight days before Easter. Sunrise services are held at the cross every Easter and were broadcast nationwide by CBS from the 1940s through the 1970s. (According to local gossip columnist Herb Caen, the original plans in 1934 called for a cross high, but there was "enough concrete on hand for an extra three feet – so on it went.") Director Don Siegel filmed a scene from the 1971 movie Dirty Harry at the cross. Harry enters the park from Lansdale Avenue, an entry close to the Muni bus stop, before confronting Scorpio at the base of the cross. According to Warner Bros. literature, Siegel was pleased to discover the huge cross at Mount Davidson Park. However, the height of the cross and foggy weather made filming difficult. Every night for a month cinematographer Bruce Surtees would ride a crane to the top of the cross only to be hampered by foggy weather. When the weather finally cleared the shot was made in one night. The cross itself has been the subject of much debate among the residents of San Francisco as they have tried to weigh its religious role against its status as an historic landmark. In 1991 the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Jewish Congress, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State sued the city over its ownership of the cross. After a long legal battle and loss at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in 1997 the City auctioned of land, including the cross, to the highest bidder. The decision to sell the land was challenged by two members of the group American Atheists, but a federal appeals court ruled against them in 2002 and the Supreme Court declined to hear their case in 2003. The cross was purchased for $26,000 by The Council of Armenian American Organizations of Northern California which installed a bronze plaque at the base memorializing the victims of